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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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2D^c SDoIIar €ln$sice* 

Volumes of the Best Poetry^ printed and bound in 
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LYRICS, IDYLS, AND ROMANCES. Selected from 

Browning's Poems. 
ROMANCES, LYRICS, AND SONNETS. Selected 

from Mrs. Browning's Poems. 
BALLADS, LYRICS, AND SONNETS. Selected from 

the Writings of H. W. Longfellow. 
INTERLUDES, LYRICS, AND IDYLS. From Poetic 

and Dramatic Works of Tennyson. 
Each volume, i6mo, gilt top, $i.oo; half morocco or 

half levant, ^3-oo- 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, 
Boston and New York. 



BALLADS, LYRICS AND SONNETS 

from the poetic works of 
henry wadsworth 
•Longfellow 



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BOSTON AND Nl 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 



M DCCC LXXXIX 



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Copyright, 1849, ^^5^i 1S63, 1866, 1872, 1873, 1875, 1877, 

1878, and 1886, 

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James R. Osgood 

& Co., and Ernest W. Longfellow. 

Copyright, 1889, 
By Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

All rights reserved. 



n ?7r 



The Riverside Press ^ Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co, 



THE ARROIV AND THE SONG. 

I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
For, so swiftljp it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight, 

I breathed a song into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; 
For who has sight so keen and strong 
That it can follow the flight of song? 

Long, long afterward, in an oak 
I found the arrow, still unbroke; 
And the song, from beginning to end, 
I found again in the heart of a friend. 



CONTENTS 



BALLADS AND LYRICS 

PAGE 

The Skeleton in Armor 9 

The Wreck of the Hesperus i6 

King Christian 20 

Beware ! 22 

The Castle by the Sea 23 

The Village Blacksmith 25 

The Rainy Day 27 

To the River Charles 2S 

Annie of Tharaw 30 

Maidenhood 33 

Excelsior 36 

The Warning 38 

The Belfry of Bruges 39 

A Gleam of Sunshine 46 

To a Child 49 

The Day is Done 57 

The Old Clock on the Stairs 59 

Seaweed 62 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert 64 

The Fire of Driftwood 67 

i, Resignation 69 

Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass 72 

King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn 75 

The Singers yy 

Prometheus yS 



vi Contents 

Epimetheus 8i 

The Ladder of St. Augustine 84 

The Phantom Ship Zy 

The Warden of the Cinque Ports 89 

The Jewish Cemetery at Newport 92 

Ohver BasseUn 96 

Victor Galbraith 100 

My Lost Youth 102 

The Ropewalk 107 

The Golden Mile-Stone no 

Santa Filomena 113 

I^Daybreak 115 

The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz 116 

The Children's Hour 118 

Enceladus 120 

Paul Revere's Ride 121 

King Robert of Sicily 128 

The Cumberland 142 

A Day of Sunshine 144 

4» Weariness 146 

Vox Populi 147 

The Legend Beautiful 148 

Charles Sumner 153 

Cadenabbia 155 

Amalfi 157 

Belisarius 161 

^ The Herons of Elmwood 163 

A Dutch Picture 166 

Vittoria Colonna 169 

The Three Kings 171 

Song 175 

Song from the Portuguese 176 

Palingenesis 177 

Hawthorne 181 

The Wind over the Chimney 183 



Contents vii 

The Bells of Lynn i86 

The Hanging of the Crane i88 

SONNETS 

Mezzo Cammin ig^ 

The Evening Star k^^ 

The Cross of Snow 199 

To-Morrow 200 

The Broken Oar 201 

Divina Commedia 202 

Seven Sonnets and a Canzone. 

I. The Artist 208 

II. Fire 209 

III. Youth and Age 210 

IV. Old Age 211 

V. To Vittoria Colonna . 212 

VI. To Vittoria Colonna 213 

VII. Dante 214 

VIII. Canzone 215 

Three Friends of Mine 216 

Chaucer 221 

Shakespeare 222 

Milton 223 

Keats 224 

The Tides 225 

A Nameless Grave 226 

Sleep 227 

Nature . 228 

The Poets 229 



BALLADS AND LYRICS. 




THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. 

PEAK! speak! thou fearful 
guest ! 
Who, with thy hollow breast 
Still in rude armor drest, 

Comest to daunt me ! 
Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 
But with thy fleshless palms 
Stretched, as if asking alms, 
Why dost thou haunt me ? " 

Then, from those cavernous eyes 
Pale flashes seemed to rise, 
As when the Northern skies 

Gleam in December ; 
And, like the water's flow 
Under December's snow. 
Came a dull voice of woe 

From the heart's chamber. 



/o The Skeleton in Armor 

'' I was a Viking old ! 
My deeds, though manifold, 
No Skald in song has told, 

No Saga taught thee ! 
Take heed, that in thy verse 
Thou dost the tale rehearse. 
Else dread a dead man's curse ; 
For this I sought thee. 

" Far in the Northern Land, 
By the wild Baltic's strand, 
I, with my childish hand. 

Tamed the gerfalcon ; 
And, with my skates fast-bound. 
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound, 
That the poor whimpering hound 

Trembled to walk on. 

" Oft to his frozen lair 
Tracked I the grisly bear. 
While from my path the hare 

Fled like a shadow ; 
Oft through the forest dark 
Followed the were-wolf's bark, 
Until the soaring lark 

Sang from the meadow. 



The Skeleton in Armor ii 

" But when I older grew, 
Joining a corsair's crew, 
O'er the dark sea I flew 

With the marauders. 
Wild was the life we led ; 
Many the souls that sped, 
Many the hearts that bled, 

By our stern orders. 

" Many a wassail-bout 
Wore the long Winter out ; 
Often our midnight shout 

Set the cocks crowing, 
As we the Berserk's tale 
Measured in cups of ale, 
Draining the oaken pail. 

Filled to o'erflowing. 

** Once as I told in glee 
Tales of the stormy sea. 
Soft eyes did gaze on me. 

Burning yet tender ; 
And as the white stars shine 
On the dark Norway pine. 
On that dark heart of mine 

Fell their soft splendor. 



12 The Skeleton in Armor 

" I wooed the blue-eyed maid, 
Yielding, yet half afraid. 
And in the forest's shade 

Our vows were plighted. 
Under its loosened vest 
Fluttered her little breast. 
Like birds within their nest 
By the hawk frighted. 

" Bright in her father's hall 
Shields gleamed upon the wall. 
Loud sang the minstrels all, 

Chanting his glory ; 
When of old Hildebrand 
I asked his daughter's hand, 
Mute did the minstrels stand 

To hear my story. 

*^ While the brown ale he quaffed, 
Loud then the champion laughed. 
And as the wind-gusts waft 

The sea-foam brightly. 
So the loud laugh of scorn. 
Out of those lips unshorn, 
From the deep drinking-horn 

Blew the foam lightly. 



The Skeleton in Armor 13 

" She was a Prince's child, 
I but a Viking wild, 
And though she blushed and smiled, 

I was discarded ! 
Should not the dove so white 
Follow the sea-mew's flight, 
Why did they leave that night 

Her nest unguarded ? 

" Scarce had I put to sea. 
Bearing the maid with me, 
Fairest of all was she 

Among the Norsemen ! 
When on the white sea-strand. 
Waving his armed hand, 
Saw we old Hildebrand, 
With twenty horsemen. 

" Then launched they to the blast. 
Bent like a reed each mast, 
Yet we were gaining fast. 

When the wind failed us ; 
And with a sudden flaw 
Came round the gusty Skaw, 
So that our foe we saw 

Laugh as he hailed us. 



14 The Skeleton in Armor 

" And as to catch the gale 

Round veered the flapping sail, 
* Death ! ' was the helmsman's hail, 
* Death without quarter ! ' 
Mid-ships with iron keel 
Struck we her ribs of steel ; 
Down her black hulk did reel 
Through the black water ! 

^^ As with his wings aslant, 
Sails the fierce cormorant, 
Seeking some rocky haunt, 

With his prey laden, — 
So toward the open main. 
Beating to sea again. 
Through the wild hurricane. 

Bore I the maiden. 

" Three weeks we westward bore, 
And when the storm was o'er, 
Cloud-like we saw the shore 

Stretching to leeward ; 
There for my lady's bower 
Built I the lofty tower. 
Which, to this very hour. 

Stands looking seaward. 



The Skeleton in Armor 75 

" There lived we many years ; 
Time dried the maiden's tears ; 
She had forgot her fears, 

She was a mother ; 
Death closed her mild blue eyes, 
Under that tower she lies ; 
Ne'er shall the sun arise 

On such another ! 

" Still grew my bosom then, 
Still as a stagnant fen ! 
Hateful to me were men, 

The sunlight hateful ! 
In the vast forest here, 
Clad in my warlike gear. 
Fell I upon my spear, 

Oh, death was grateful ! 

" Thus, seamed with many scars. 
Bursting these prison bars. 
Up to its native stars 

My soul ascended ! 
There from the flowing bowl 
Deep drinks the warrior's soul. 
Skoal! to the Northland ! skoal/'' 

Thus the tale ended. 




1 6 The Wreck of the Hesperus 



THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. 

r was the schooner Hesperus 

That sailed the wintry sea ; 
And the skipper had taken his 
little daughter, 
To bear him company. 

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, 
Her cheeks like the dawn of day. 

And her bosom white as the hawthorn 
buds, 
That ope in the month of May. 

The skipper he stood beside the helm. 
His pipe was in his mouth, 

And he watched how the veering flaw did 
blow 
The smoke now West, now South. 

Then up and spake an old Sailor, 
Had sailed to the Spanish Main, 

" I pray thee, put into yonder port, 
For I fear a hurricane. 

" Last night, the moon had a golden ring, 
And to-night no moon we see 1 " 



The Wreck of the Hesperus ly 

The skipper, he blew a whiff from his 
pipe, 
And a scornful laugh laughed he. 

Colder and louder blew the wind, 

A gale from the Northeast, 
The snow fell hissing in the brine, 

And the billows frothed like yeast. 

Down came the storm, and smote amain 

The vessel in its strength ; 
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted 
steed, 

Then leaped her cable's length. 

*'Come hither! come hither! my little 
daughter. 

And do not tremble so ; 
For I can weather the roughest gale 

That ever wind did blow." 

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's 
coat 

Against the stinging blast ; 
He cut a rope from a broken spar, 

And bound her to the mast. 



1 8 The Wreck of the Hesperus 

" O father ! I hear the church-bells ring, 

Oh say, what may it be ? " 
"'Tis a fog -bell on a rock -bound 
coast ! " — 

And he steered for the open sea. 

" O father ! I hear the sound of guns, 

Oh say, what may it be ? " 
*^ Some ship in distress, that cannot live 

In such an angry sea ! '" 

" O father ! I see a gleaming light. 

Oh say, what may it be ? '' 
But the father answered never a word, 

A frozen corpse was he. 

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark. 
With his face turned to the skies, 

The lantern gleamed through the gleam- 
ing snow 
On his fixed and glassy eyes. 

Then the maiden clasped her hands and 
prayed 
That saved she might be ; 
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the 
wave, 
On the Lake of Galilee. 



The Wreck of the Hesperus ig 

And fast through the midnight dark and 
drear, 
Through the whistling sleet and 
snow, 
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept 
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe. 

And ever the fitful gusts between 
A sound came from the land ; 

It was the sound of the trampling surf 
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. 

The breakers were right beneath her 
bows, 

She drifted a dreary wreck. 
And a whooping billow swept the crew 

Like icicles from her deck. 

She struck where the white and fleecy 
waves 

Looked soft as carded wool. 
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side 

Like the horns of an angry bull. 

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, 
With the masts went by the board ; 

Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, 
Ho ! ho ! the breakers roared. 



20 King Christian 

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, 

A fisherman stood aghast, 
To see the form of a maiden fair 

Lashed close to a drifting mast. 

The salt sea was frozen on her breast, 

The salt tears in her eyes ; 
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea- 
weed. 

On the billows fall and rise. 

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, 
In the midnight and the snow ! 

Christ save us all from a death like this. 
On the reef of Norman's Woe ! 



KING CHRISTIAN. 

A NATIONAL SONG OF DENMARK. 

ING CHRISTIAN stood by the 
lofty mast 
In mist and smoke ; 
His sword was hammering so fast, 
Through Gothic helm and brain it passed ; 
Then sank each hostile hulk and mast. 
In mist and smoke. 




King Christian 21 

" Fly ! " shouted they, " fly, he who can ! 
Who braves of Denmark's Christian 
The stroke ? " 

Nils Juel gave heed to the tempest's roar, 

Now is the hour ! 
He hoisted his blood-red flag once more. 
And smote upon the foe full sore, 
And shouted loud, through the tempest's 
roar, 

" Now is the hour ! " 
" Fly ! '' shouted they, "for shelter fly ! 
Of Denmark's Juel who can defy 

The power ? " 

North Sea ! a glimpse of Wessel rent 

Thy murky sky ! 
Then champions to thine arms were sent ; 
Terror and Death glared where he went ; 
From the waves was heard a wail, that 
rent 

Thy murky sky ! 
From Denmark thunders TordenskioF, 
Let each to Heaven commend his soul. 

And fly ! 

Path of the Dane to fame and might ! 
Dark-rolling wave ! 



22 



Beware 



Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight, 
Goes to meet danger with despite. 
Proudly as thou the tempest's might. 

Dark-rolling wave ! 
And amid pleasures and alarms. 
And war and victory, be thine arms 

My grave ! 




BEWARE ! 

[a GERMAN VOLKSLIED.] 

KNOW a maiden fair to see, 

Take care ! 
She can both false and friendly 
be, 

Beware ! Beware ! 

Trust her not. 
She is fooling thee ! 



She has two eyes, so soft and brown. 

Take care ! 
She gives a side-glance and looks down. 

Beware ! Beware ! 

Trust her not. 
She is fooling thee ! 



The Castle by the Sea 2^ 

And she has hair of a golden hue, 

Take care ! 
And what she says, it is not true, 

Beware ! Beware ! 

Trust her not. 
She is fooHng thee ! 

She has a bosom as white as snow. 

Take care ! 
She knows how much it is best to show. 

Beware ! Beware ! 

Trust her not. 
She is fooling thee ! 

She gives thee a garland woven fair. 

Take care ! 
It is a fooPs-cap for thee to wear, 

Beware ! Beware ! 

Trust her not, 
She is fooKng thee ! 



THE CASTLE BY THE SEA. 

[from the GERMAN OF UHLAND.] 

AST thou seen that lordly cas- 
tle. 
That Castle by the Sea ? 



24 The Castle by the Sea 

Golden and red above it 
The clouds float gorgeously. 

** And fain it would stoop downward 
To the mirrored wave below ; 
And fain it would soar upward 
In the evening's crimson glow." 

" Well have I seen that castle, 
That Castle by the Sea, 
And the moon above it standing, 
And the mist rise solemnly." 

" The winds and the waves of ocean. 
Had they a merry chime ? 
Didst thou hear, from those lofty cham- 
bers, 
The harp and the minstrel's rhyme ? " 

" The winds and the waves of ocean, 
They rested quietly. 
But I heard on the gale a sound of wail. 
And tears came to mine eye." 

" And sawest thou on the turrets 
The King and his royal bride ? 
And the wave of their crimson mantles ? 
And the golden crown of pride ? 



The Village Blacksmith 25 

*' Led they not forth, in rapture, 
A beauteous maiden there ? 
Resplendent as the morning sun, 
Beaming with golden hair ? " 

" Well saw I the ancient parents, 
Without the crown of pride ; 
They were moving slow, in weeds of 
woe. 
No maiden was by their side ! " 




THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. 

NDER a spreading chestnut-tree 
The village smithy stands ; 
The smith, a mighty man is he. 
With large and sinewy hands ; 
And the muscles of his brawny arms 
Are strong as iron bands. 

His hair is crisp, and black, and long. 

His face is like the tan j 
His brow is wet with honest sweat, 

He earns whatever he can. 



26 The tillage Blacksmith 

And looks the whole world in the face, 
For he owes not any man. 

Week in, week out, from morn till night, 
You can hear his bellows blow ; 

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge, 
With measured beat and slow, 

Like a sexton ringing the village bell, 
When the evening sun is low. 

And children coming home from school 

Look in at the open door ; 
They love to see the flaming forge, 

And hear the bellows roar, 
And catch the burning sparks that fly 

Like chaff from a threshing-floor. 

He goes on Sunday to the church. 

And sits among his boys ; 
He hears the parson pray and preach, 

He hears his daughter's voice. 
Singing in the village choir, 

And it makes his heart rejoice. 

It sounds to him like her mother's voice. 
Singing in Paradise ! 



The Rainy Day 2y 

He needs must think of her once more, 

How in the grave she lies ; 
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 

A tear out of his eyes. 

Toiling, — rejoicing, — sorrowing, 
Onward through life he goes j 

Each morning sees some task begin, 
Each evening sees it close ; 

Something attempted, something done, 
Has earned a night's repose. 

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, 
For the lesson thou hast taught ! 

Thus at the flaming forge of life 
Our fortunes must be wrought ; 

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 
Each burning deed and thought. 



^ 



THE RAINY DAY. 

HE day is cold, and dark, and 
dreary ; 
It rains, and the wind is never 
weary ; 




28 To the River Charles 

The vine still clings to the mouldering 

wall, 
But at every gust the dead leaves fall, 
And the day is dark and dreary. 

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary ; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary; 
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering 

Past, 
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the 

blast, 
And the days are dark and dreary. 

Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ; 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; 
Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
Into each life some rain must fall. 

Some days must be dark and dreary. 

t 

TO THE RIVER CHARLES. 

IVER ! that in silence windest 
Through the meadows, bright 
and free, 

Till at length thy rest thou findest 
In the bosom of the sea ! 




To the River Charles 29 

Four long years of mingled feeling, 
Half in rest, and half in strife, 

I have seen thy waters stealing 
Onward, like the stream of life. 

Thou hast taught me, Silent River ! 

Many a lesson, deep and long ; 
Thou hast been a generous giver ; 

I can give thee but a song. 

Oft in sadness and in illness, 

I have watched thy current glide, 

Till the beauty of its stillness 
Overflowed me, like a tide. 

And in better hours and brighter, 
When I saw thy waters gleam, 

I have felt my heart beat lighter. 
And leap onward with thy stream. 

Not for this alone I love thee. 
Nor because thy waves of blue 

From celestial seas above thee 
Take their own celestial hue. 

Where yon shadowy woodlands hide thee. 
And thy waters disappear. 



^o Annie of Tharaw 

Friends I love have dwelt beside thee, 
And have made thy margin dear. 

More than this ; — thy name reminds me 
Of three friends, all true and tried ; 

And that name, like magic, binds me 
Closer, closer to thy side. 

Friends my soul with joy remembers ! 

How like quivering flames they start, 
When I fan the living embers 

On the hearth- stone of my heart! 

'T is for this, thou Silent River ! 

That my spirit leans to thee ; 
Thou hast been a generous giver, 

Take this idle song from me. 

$ 

ANNIE OF THARAW. 

[from the low GERMAN OF SIMON DACH.] 

NNIE OF THARAW, my true 
love of old. 
She is my life, and my goods, 
and my gold. 




Annie of Thar aw ^i 

Annie of Tharaw, her heart once again 
To me has surrendered in joy and in 
pain. 

Annie of Tharaw, my riches, my good, 
Thou, O my soul, my flesh, and my blood ! 

Then come the wild weather, come sleet 

or come snow, 
We will stand by each other, however it 

blow. 

Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and 

pain 
Shall be to our true love as links to the 

chain. 

As the palm-tree standeth so straight and 

so tall. 
The more the hail beats, and the more the 

rains fall, — 

So love in our hearts shall grow mighty 

and strong, 
Through crosses, through sorrows, through 

manifold wrong. 



^2 Annie of Tharaw 

Shouldst thou be torn from me to wander 

alone 
In a desolate land where the sun is scarce 

known, — 

Through forests I '11 follow, and where 

the sea flows, 
Through ice, and through iron, through 

armies of foes. 

Annie of Tharaw, my light and my sun, 
The threads of our two lives are woven in 
one. 

Whatever I have bidden thee thou hast 
obeyed, 

Whatever forbidden thou hast not gain- 
said. 

How in the turmoil of life can love stand, 
Where there is not one heart, and one 
mouth, and one hand .? 

Some seek for dissension, and trouble, 

and strife ; 
Like a dog and a cat live such man and 

wife. 



Maidenhood 5^ 

Annie of Tharaw, such is not our love ; 
Thou art my lambkin, my chick, and my 
dove. 

Whatever my desire is, in thine may be 

seen; 
I am king of the household) and thou art 

its queen. 

It is this, O my Annie, my hearths sweetest 

rest, 
That makes of us twain but one soul in 

one breast. 

This turns to a heaven the hut where we 

dwell ; 
While wrangling soon changes a home to 

a hell 



MAIDENHOOD. 

AIDEN ! with the meek, brown 
eyes, 
In whose orbs a shadow lies 
Like the dusk in evening skies ! 




^4 Maidenhood 

Thou whose locks outshine the sun, 
Golden tresses, wreathed in one, 
As the braided streamlets run ! 

Standing, with reluctant feet, 
Where the brook and river meet, 
Womanhood and childhood fleet ! 

Gazing, with a timid glance, 
On the brooklet^s swift advance, 
On the river^s broad expanse ! 

Deep and still, that gliding stream 
Beautiful to thee must seem, 
As the river of a dream. 

Then why pause with indecision. 
When bright angels in thy vision 
Beckon thee to fields Elysian ? 

Seest thou shadows sailing by. 
As the dove, with startled eye. 
Sees the falcon's shadow fly ? 

Hearest thou voices on the shore, 
That our ears perceive no more. 
Deafened by the cataract's roar ? 



Maidenhood ^5 

Oh, thou child of many prayers ! 

Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares ! 

Care and age come unawares ! 

Like the swell of some sweet tune, 
Morning rises into noon, 
May glides onward into June. 

Childhood is the bough, where slumbered 
Birds and blossoms many-numbered ; — 
Age, that bough with snows encumbered. 

Gather, then, each flower that grows, 
When the young heart overflows. 
To embalm that tent of snows. 

Bear a lily in thy hand ; 

Gates of brass cannot withstand 

One touch of that magic wand. 

Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, 
In thy heart the dew of youth. 
On thy lips the smile of truth. 

Oh, that dew, like balm, shall steal 
Into wounds that cannot heal, 
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal ; 




^6 Excelsior 

And that smile, like sunshine, dart 
Into many a sunless heart, 
For a smile of God thou art. 



EXCELSIOR. 

HE shades of night were falling 
fast. 
As through an Alpine village 
passed 
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, 
A banner with the strange device, 
Excelsior ! 

His brow was sad ; his eye beneath 
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, 
And like a silver clarion rung 
The accents of that unknown tongue, 
Excelsior ! 

In happy homes he saw the light 

Of household fires gleam warm and 

bright ; 
Above, the spectral glaciers shone. 
And from his lips escaped a groan. 
Excelsior ! 



Excelsior 37 

" Try not the Pass ! '' the old man said ; 
" Dark lowers the tempest overhead, 
The roaring torrent is deep and wide ! " 
And loud that clarion voice replied, 
Excelsior ! 

" Oh stay," the maiden said, " and rest 
Thy weary head upon this breast ! " 
A tear stood in his bright blue eye. 
But still he answered, with a sigh. 
Excelsior ! 

" Beware the pine-tree's withered branch ! 
Beware the awful avalanche ! '' 
This was the peasant's last Good-night, 
A voice replied, far up the height, 
Excelsior ! 

At break of day, as heavenward 
The pious monks of Saint Bernard 
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer, 
A voice cried through the startled air, 
Excelsior ! 

A traveller, by the faithful hound, 
Half-buried in the snow was found, 
Still grasping in his hand of ice 



^8 The Warning 

That banner with the strange device, 
Excelsior ! 



There in the twilight cold and gray, 
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, 
And from the sky, serene and far, 
A voice fell, like a falling star. 
Excelsior ! 




THE WARNING. 

EWARE ! The Israelite of old, 
who tore 
The lion in his path, — when, 
poor and blind, 
He saw the blessed light of heaven no 
more. 
Shorn of his noble strength and forced 
to grind 
In prison, and at last led forth to be 
A pander to Philistine revelry, — 

Upon the pillars of the temple laid 

His desperate hands, and in its over- 
throw 



The Belfry of Bruges 59 

Destroyed himself, and with him those 

who made 
A cruel mockery of his sightless woe ; 
The poor, blind Slave, the scofE and jest 

of all. 
Expired, and thousands perished in the 

fall! 

There is a poor, blind Samson in this 
land. 
Shorn of his strength and bound in 
bonds of steel, 

Who may, in some grim revel, raise his 
hand, 
And shake the pillars of this Common- 
weal, 

Till the vast Temple of our liberties 

A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish 
lies. 

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES. 

CARILLON. 

N the ancient town of Bruges, 
In the quaint old Flemish city, 
As the evening shades descended, 




40 The Belfry of Bruges 

Low and loud and sweetly blended, 
Low at times and loud at times, 
And changing like a poet's rhymes. 
Rang the beautiful wild chimes 
From the Belfry in the market 
Of the ancient town of Bruges. 

Then, with deep sonorous clangor 
Calmly answering their sweet anger, 
When the wrangling bells had ended, 
Slowly struck the clock eleven. 
And, from out the silent heaven. 
Silence on the town descended. 
Silence, silence everywhere. 
On the earth and in the air, 
Save that footsteps here and there 
Of some burgher home returning. 
By the street lamps faintly burning, 
For a moment woke the echoes 
Of the ancient town of Bruges. 

But amid my broken slumbers 
Still I heard those magic numbers. 
As they loud proclaimed the flight 
And stolen marches of the night ; 
Till their chimes in sweet collision 
Mingled with each wandering vision, 



The Belfry of Bruges 41 

Mingled with the fortune-telling 
Gypsy-bands of dreams and fancies, 
Which amid the waste expanses 
Of the silent land of trances 
Have their solitary dwelling ; 
All else seemed asleep in Bruges, 
In the quaint old Flemish city. 

And I thought how like these chimes 
Are the poet's airy rhymes, 
All his rhymes and roundelays, 
His conceits, and songs, and ditties. 
From the belfry of his brain, 
Scattered downward, though in vain, 
On the roofs and stones of cities ! 
For by night the drowsy ear 
Under its curtains cannot hear, 
And by day men go their ways. 
Hearing the music as they pass. 
But deeming it no more, alas ! 
Than the hollow sound of brass. 

Yet perchance a sleepless wight, 
Lodging at some humble inn 
In the narrow lanes of life. 
When the dusk and hush of night 
Shut out the incessant din 



42 The Belfry of Bruges 

Of daylight and its toil and strife, 
May listen with a calm delight 
To the poet's melodies, 
Till he hears, or dreams he hears, 
Intermingled with the song. 
Thoughts that he has cherished long; 
Hears amid the chime and singing 
The bells of his own village ringing, 
And wakes, and finds his slumberous 

eyes 
Wet with most delicious tears. 

Thus dreamed I, as by night I lay 
In Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Ble, 
Listening with a wild delight 
To the chimes that, through the night. 
Rang their changes from the Belfry 
Of that quaint old Flemish city. 



In the market-place of Bruges stands 
the belfry old and brown ; 

Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, 
still it watches o'er the town. 



The Belfry of Bruges 4^ 

As the summer morn was breaking, on 

that lofty tower I stood, 
And the world threw off the darkness, like 

the weeds of widowhood. 

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, 
and with streams and vapors gray. 

Like a shield embossed with silver, round 
and vast the landscape lay. 

At my feet the city slumbered. From its 
chimneys, here and there, 

Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, 
vanished, ghost-like, into air. 

Not a sound rose from the city at that 

early morning hour. 
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the 

ancient tower. 

From their nests beneath the rafters sang 
the swallows wild and high ; 

And the world, beneath me sleeping, 
seemed more distant than the sky. 

Then most musical and solemn, bringing 
back the olden times, 



44 The Belfry of Bruges 

With their strange, unearthly changes 
rang the melancholy chimes, 

Like the psalms from some old cloister, 
when the nuns sing in the choir ; 

And the great bell tolled among them, like 
the chanting of a friar. 

Visions of the days departed, shadowy 
phantoms filled my brain ; 

They who live in history only seemed to 
walk the earth again ; 

All the Foresters of Flanders, — mighty 

Baldwin Bras de Fer, 
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy 

de Dampierre. 

I beheld the pageants splendid that 
adorned those days of old ; 

Stately dames, like queens attended, 
knights who bore the Fleece of 
Gold; 

Lombard and Venetian merchants with 

deep-laden argosies ; 
Ministers from twenty nations ; more than 

royal pomp and ease. 



The Belfry of Bruges 4^ 

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling hum- 
bly on the ground ; 

I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with 
her hawk and hound ; 

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a 
duke slept with the queen. 

And the armed guard around them, and 
the sword unsheathed between. 

I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Na- 
mur and Juliers bold, 

Marching homeward from the bloody bat- 
tle of the Spurs of Gold ; 

Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the 
White Hoods moving west, 

Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the 
Golden Dragon's nest. 

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the 

land with terror smote ; 
And again the wild alarum sounded from 

the tocsin's throat ; 

Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er 
lagoon and dike of sand, 



46 A Gleam of Sunshine 

"I am Roland! I am Roland! there is 
victory in the land ! " 

Then the sound of drums aroused me. 

The awakened city's roar 
Chased the phantoms I had summoned 

back into their graves once more. 

Hours had passed away like minutes ; and, 

before I was aware, 
Lo ! the shadow of the belfry crossed the 

sun-illumined square. 




A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE. 

HIS is the place. Stand still, my 
steed, 
Let me review the scene, 
And summon from the shadowy Past 
The forms that once have been. 

The Past and Present here unite 

Beneath Time's flowing tide, 
Like footprints hidden by a brook, 

But seen on either side. 



A Gleam of Sunshine 4y 

Here runs the highway to the town ; 

There the green lane descends, 
Through which I walked to church with 
thee, 

O gentlest of my friends ! 

The shadow of the linden-trees 

Lay moving on the grass ; 
Between them and the moving boughs, 

A shadow, thou didst pass. 

Thy dress was like the lilies, 
And thy heart as pure as they : 

One of God's holy messengers 
Did walk with me that day. 

I saw the branches of the trees 
Bend down thy touch to meet. 

The clover-blossoms in the grass 
Rise up to kiss thy feet. 

" Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares, 

Of earth and folly born ! " 
Solemnly sang the village choir 

On that sweet Sabbath morn. 

Through the closed blinds the golden sun 
Poured in a dusty beam. 



48 A Gleam of Sunshine 

Like the celestial ladder seen 
By Jacob in his dream. 

And ever and anon, the wind, 

Sweet-scented with the hay, 
Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering 
leaves 

That on the window lay. 

Long was the good man's sermon, 

Yet it seemed not so to me ; 
For he spake of Ruth the beautiful, 

And still I thought of thee. 

Long was the prayer he uttered, 

Yet it seemed not so to me ; 
For in my heart I prayed with him, 

And still I thought of thee. 

But now, alas ! the place seems changed ; 

Thou art no longer here : 
Part of the sunshine of the scene 

With thee did disappear. 

Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart, 
Like pine-trees dark and high. 

Subdue the light of noon, and. breathe 
A low and ceaseless sigh ; 




To a Child 49 

This memory brightens o'er the past, 

As when the sun, concealed 
Behind some cloud that near us hangs 

Shines on a distant field. 



% 



TO A CHILD. 

EAR child ! how radiant on thy 
mother's knee, 
With merry-making eyes and 
jocund smiles, 
Thou gazest at the painted tiles, 
Whose figures grace, 
With many a grotesque form and face, 
The ancient chimney of thy nursery I , 
The lady with the gay macaw. 
The dancing girl, the grave bashaw 
With bearded lip and chin ; • 
And, leaning idly o'er his gate. 
Beneath the imperial fan of state, 
The Chinese mandarin. 

With what a look of proud command 
Thou shakest in thy little hand 
The coral rattle with its silver bells, 



$o To a Child 

Making a merry tune ! 

Thousands of years in Indian seas 

That coral grew, by slow degrees, 

Until some deadly and wild monsoon 

Dashed it on Coromandel's sand ! 

Those silver bells 

Reposed of yore, 

As shapeless ore, 

Far down in the deep-sunken wells 

Of darksome mines. 

In some obscure and sunless place, 

Beneath huge Chimborazo's base, 

Or Potosi's o'erhanging pities ! 

And thus for thee, O little ehild^ 

Through many a danger and escape. 

The tall ships passed the stormy cape ; 

For thee in foreign lands remote. 

Beneath a burning, tropic clime, 

The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat, 

Himself as swift and wild. 

In falling, clutched the frail arbute, 

The fibres of whose shallow root. 

Uplifted from the soil, betrayed 

The silver veins beneath it laid. 

The buried treasures of the miser, Time. 

But, lo ! thy door is left ajar ! 
Thou hearest footsteps from afar ! 



To a Child 5/ 

And, at the sound, 

Thou turnest round 

With quick and questioning eyes, 

Like one who, in a foreign land, 

Beholds on every hand 

Some source of wonder and surprise ! 

And, restlessly, impatiently, 

Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free. 

The four walls of thy nursery 

Are now like prison walls to thee. 

No more thy mother's smiles, 

No more the painted tiles, 

Delight thee, nor the playthings on the 

floor, 
That won thy little, beating heart before ; 
Thou strugglest for the open door. 

Through these once solitary halls 
Thy pattering footstep falls. 
The sound of thy merry voice 
Makes the old walls 
Jubilant, and they rejoice 
With the joy of thy young heart, 
O'er the light of whose gladness 
No shadows of sadness 
From the sombre background of memory 
start. 



52 To a Child 

Once, ah, once, within these walls, 
One whom memory oft recalls, 
The Father of his Country, dwelt. 
And yonder meadows broad and damp 
The fires of the besieging camp 
Encircled with a burning belt. 
Up and down these echoing stairs. 
Heavy with the weight of cares. 
Sounded his majestic tread ; 
Yes, within this very room 
Sat he in those hours of gloom, 
Weary both in heart and head. 

But what are these grave thoughts to thee ? 

Out, out ! into the open air ! 

Thy only dream is liberty, 

Thou carest little how or where. 

I see thee eager at thy play. 

Now shouting to the apples on the tree, 

With cheeks as round and red as they; 

And now among the yellow stalks, 

Among the flowering shrubs and plants. 

As restless as the bee. 

Along the garden walks, 

The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I 

trace ; 
And see at every turn how they efface 



To a Child 5^ 

Whole villages of sand-roofed tents, 

That rise like golden domes 

Above the cavernous and secret homes 

Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants. 

Ah, cruel little Tamerlane, 

Who, with thy dreadful reign. 

Dost persecute and overwhelm 

These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm ! 

What ! tired already ! with those sup- 
pliant looks. 
And voice more beautiful than a poet's 

books 
Or murmuring sound of water as it flows, 
Thou comest back to parley with repose ! 
This rustic seat in the old apple-tree, 
With its o'erhanging golden canopy 
Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues, 
And shining with the argent light of dews, 
Shall for a season be our place of rest. 
Beneath us, like an oriole's pendent nest, 
From which the laughing birds have taken 

wing, 
By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant 

swing. 
Dream-like the waters of the river gleam ; 
A sailless vessel drops adown the stream, 



^4 To a Child 

And like it, to a sea as wide and deep, 
Thou driftest gently down the tides of 
sleep. 

child ! O new-born denizen 
Of life's great city ! on thy head 
The glory of the morn is shed, 
Like a celestial benison ! 

Here at the portal thou dost stand, 
And with thy little hand 
Thou openest the mysterious gate 
Into the future's undiscovered land. 

1 see its valves expand, 
As at the touch of Fate ! 

Into those realms of love and hate, 

Into that darkness blank and drear, 

By some prophetic feeling taught, 

I launch the bold, adventurous thought, 

Freighted with hope and fear ; 

As upon subterranean streams, 

In caverns unexplored and dark, 

Men sometimes launch a fragile bark, 

Laden with flickering fire. 

And watch its swift-receding beams, 

Until at length they disappear, 

And in the distant dark expire. 



To a Child 55 

By what astrology of fear or hope 

Dare I to cast thy horoscope ! 

Like the new moon thy Ufe appears j 

A little strip of silver light, 

And widening outward into night 

The shadowy disk of future years ; 

And yet upon its outer rim, 

A luminous circle, faint and dim, 

And scarcely visible to us here, 

Rounds and completes the perfect sphere ; 

A prophecy and intimation, 

A pale and feeble adumbration. 

Of the great world of light, that lies 

Behind all human destinies. 

Ah ! if thy fate, with anguish fraught, 
Should be to wet the dusty soil 
With the hot tears and sweat of toil, — 
To struggle with imperious thought. 
Until the overburdened brain, 
Weary with labor, faint with pain. 
Like a jarred pendulum, retain 
Only its motion, not its power, — 
Remember, in that perilous hour. 
When most afflicted and oppressed. 
From labor there shall come forth rest. 



56 To a Child 

And if a more auspicious fate 

On thy advancing steps await, 

Still let it ever be thy pride 

To linger by the laborer's side ; 

With words of sympathy or song 

To cheer the dreary march along 

Of the great army of the poor, 

O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor. 

Nor to thyself the task shall be 

Without reward ; for thou shalt learn 

The wisdom early to discern 

True beauty in utility ; 

As great Pythagoras of yore, 

Standing beside the blacksmith's door, 

And hearing the hammers, as they smote 

The anvils with a different note, 

Stole from the varying tones, that hung 

Vibrant on every iron tongue, 

The secret of the sounding v/ire. 

And formed the seven-chorded lyre. 

Enough ! I will not play the Seer; 
I will no longer strive to ope 
The mystic volume, where appear 
The herald Hope, forerunning Fear, 
And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope. 
Thy destiny remains untold ; 




The Day is Done ^j 

For, like Acestes' shaft of old, 
The sv/ift thought kindles as it flies, 
And burns to ashes in the skies. 



% 



THE DAY IS DONE. 

HE day is done, and the dark- 
ness 
Falls from the wings of Night, 
As a feather is wafted downward 
From an eagle in his flight. 

I see the lights of the village 

Gleam through the rain and the mist, 
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me 

That my .soul cannot resist : 

A feeling of sadness and longing. 

That is not akin to pain. 
And resembles sorrow only 

As the mist resembles the rain. 

Come, read to me some poem. 
Some simple and heartfelt lay. 

That shall soothe this restless feeling, 
And banish the thoughts of day. 



^8 The Day is Done 

Not from the grand old masters, 
Not from the bards subHme, 

Whose distant footsteps echo 
Through the corridors of Time. 

For, like strains of martial music, 
Their mighty thoughts suggest 

Lifers endless toil and endeavor ; 
And to-night I long for rest. 

Read from some humbler poet, 

Whose songs gushed from his heart, 

As showers from the clouds of summer, 
Or tears from the eyelids start ; 

Who, through long days of labor. 

And nights devoid of ease, 
Still heard in his soul the music 

Of wonderful melodies. 

Such songs have power to quiet 

The restless pulse of care. 
And come like the benediction 

That follows after prayer. 

Then read from the treasured volume 
The poem of thy choice, 



The Old Clock on the Stairs 59 

And lend to the rhyme of the poet 
The beauty of thy voice. 

And the night shall be filled with music, 
And the cares, that infest the day, 

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, 
And as silently steal away. 



THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. 

OMEWHAT back from the vil- 
lage street 
Stands the old-fashioned country 
seat. 
Across its antique portico 
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw ; 
And from its station in the hall 
An ancient timepiece says to all, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

Half-way up the stairs it stands, 
And points and beckons with its hands 
From its case of massive oak, 
Like a monk, who, under his cloak, 
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas ! 




6o The Old Clock on the Stairs 

With sorrowful voice to all who pass, — 
** Forever — never ! 
Never — forever 1 " 

By day its voice is low and light j 
But in the silent dead of night, 
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall, 
It echoes along the vacant hall, 
Along the ceiling, along the floor. 
And seems to say, at each chamber-door, 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

Through days of sorrow and of mirth, 
Through days of death and days of birth. 
Through every swift vicissitude 
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, 
And as if, like God, it all things saw. 
It calmly repeats those words of awe, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

In that mansion used to be 
Free-hearted Hospitality ; 
His great fires up the chimney roared ; 
The stranger feasted at his board ; 
But, like the skeleton at the feast, 



The Old Clock on the Stairs 6/ 

That warning timepiece never ceased, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! ' 

There groups of merry children played, 
There youths and maidens dreaming 

strayed ; 
O precious hours ! O golden prime, 
And affluence of love and time ! 
Even as a miser counts his gold, 
Those hours the ancient timepiece told, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

From that chamber, clothed in white, 
The bride came forth on her wedding 

night ; 
There, in that silent room below, 
The dead lay in his shroud of snow j 
And in the hush that followed the prayer, 
Was heard the old clock on the stair, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

All are scattered now and fled, 
Some are married, some are dead ; 
And when I ask, with throbs of pain, 



62 Seaweed 

" Ah ! when shall they all meet again ? '* 
As in the days long since gone by, 
The ancient timepiece makes reply, — 
^' Forever — never 1 
Never — forever ! '' 

Never here, forever there, 
Where all parting, pain, and care, 
And death, and time shall disappear, — 
Forever there, but never here ! 
The horologe of Eternity 
Sayeth this incessantly, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever 1 " 



\ 



SEAV^EED. 

!HEN descends on the Atlantic 
The gigantic 
Storm-wind of the equinox. 
Landward in his wTath he scourges 

The toiling surges. 
Laden with seaweed from the rocks : 

From Bermuda's reefs ; from edges 
Of sunken ledges, 




Seaweed 63 

In some far-off, bright Azore ; 
From Bahama, and the dashing, 

Silver-flashing 
Surges of San Salvador ; 

From the tumbling surf, that buries 

The Orkneyan skerries, 
Answering the hoarse Hebrides ; 
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting 

Spars, uplifting 
On the desolate, rainy seas j — 

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 

On the shifting 
Currents of the restless main ; 
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches 

Of sandy beaches. 
All have found repose again. 

So when storms of wild emotion 

Strike the ocean 
Of the poet's soul, erelong 
From each cave and rocky fastness, 

In its vastness, 
Floats some fragment of a song : 

From the far-off isles enchanted, 
Heaven has planted 



64 Sir Htmphrey Gilbert 

With the golden fruit of Truth ; 
From the flashing surf, whose vision 

Gleams Elysian 
In the tropic clime of Youth ; 

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor 

That forever 
Wrestle with the tides of Fate ; 
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, 

Tempest-shattered, 
Floating waste and desolate ; — 

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 

On the shifting 
Currents of the restless heart ; 
Till at length in books recorded, 

They, like hoarded 
Household words, no more depart. 



1 



SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 

OUTHWARD with fleet of ice 
Sailed the corsair Death ; 
Wild and fast blew the blast, 
And the east-wind was his breath. 




Sir Humphrey Gilbert 6^ 

His lordly ships of ice 

Glisten in the sun ; 
On each side, like pennons wide, 

Flashing crystal streamlets run. 

His sails of white sea-mist 

Dripped with silver rain ; 
But where he passed there were cast 

Leaden shadows o'er the main. 

Eastward from Campobello 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed ; 

Three days or more seaward he bore, 
Then, alas ! the land-wind failed. 

Alas ! the land-wind failed, 
And ice-cold grew the night ; 

And nevermore, on sea or shore. 
Should Sir Humphrey see the light. 

He sat upon the deck, 

The Book was in his hand ; 

" Do not fear ! Heaven is as near," 
He said, **by water as by land ! " 

In the first watch of the night, 
Without a signal's sound, 



66 Sir Humphrey Gilbert 

Out of the sea, mysteriously, 

The fleet of Death rose all around. 

The moon and the evening star 
Were hanging in the shrouds ; 

Every mast, as it passed, 

Ssemed to rake the passing clouds. 

They grappled with their prize, 
At midnight black and cold ! 

As of a rock was the shock ; 
Heavily the ground-swell rolled. 

Southward through day and dark. 
They drift in close embrace, 

With mist and rain, o'er the open main ; 
Yet there seems no change of place. 

Southward, forever southward, 
They drift through dark and day ; 

And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream 
Sinking, vanish all away. 



N 




The Fire of Drift- JVood 67 

THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. 

DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD, 

E sat within the farm-house old, 
Whose windows, looking o'er 
the bay, 

Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold, 
An easy entrance, night and day. 

Not far away we saw the port, 

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, 
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort. 

The wooden houses, quaint and brown. 

We sat and talked until the night. 
Descending, filled the little room ; 

Our faces faded from the sight. 
Our voices only broke the gloom. 

We spake of many a vanished scene. 
Of what we once had thought and said, 

Of what had been, and might have been, 
And who was changed, and who was 
dead ; 

And all that fills the hearts of friends. 
When first they feel, with secret pain, 



68 The Fire of Drift-lVood 

Their lives thenceforth have separate 
ends, 
And never can be one again ; 

The first slight swerving of the heart, 
That words are powerless to express, 

And leave it still unsaid in part. 
Or say it in too great excess. 

The very tones in which we spake 

Had something strange, I could but 
mark ; 

The leaves of memory seemed to make 
A mournful rustling in the dark. 

Oft died the words upon our lips. 
As suddenly, from out the fire 

Built of the wreck of stranded ships, 
The flames would leap and then expire. 

And, as their splendor flashed and failed, 
We thought of wrecks upon the main, 

Of ships dismasted, that were hailed 
And sent no answer back again. 

The windows, rattling in their frames. 
The ocean, roaring up the beach. 



Resignation 69 

The gusty blast, the bickering flames, 
All mingled vaguely in our speech ; 

Until they made themselves a part 
Of fancies floating through the brain, 

The long-lost ventures of the heart, 
That send no answers back again. 

O flames that glowed ! O hearts that 
yearned ! 
They were indeed too much akin, 
The drift-wood fire without that burned, 
The thoughts that burned and glowed 
within. 




RESIGNATION. 

HERE is no flock, however 
watched and tended. 
But one dead lamb is there ! 
There is no fireside, howsoever defended, 
But has one vacant chair ! 

The air is full of farewells to the dying, 
And mournings for the dead ; 



JO Resignation 

The heart of Rachel, for her children 
crying, 
Will not be comforted ! 

Let us be patient ! These severe afflic- 
tions 

Not from the ground arise. 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 

Assume this dark disguise. 

We see but dimly through the mists and 
vapors ; 

Amid these earthly damps 
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers 

May be heaven's distant lamps. 

There is no Death! What seems so is 
transition ; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian. 

Whose portal we call Death. 

She is not dead, — the child of our affec- 
tion, — 
But gone unto that school 
Where she no longer needs our poor pro- 
tection. 
And Christ himself doth rule. 



Resignation yi 

In that great cloister's stillness and seclu- 
sion, 
By guardian angels led, 
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pol- 
lution, 
She lives, whom we call dead. 

Day after day we think what she is doing 
In those bright realms of air ; 

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, 
Behold her grown more fair. 

Thus do we walk with her, and keep un- 
broken 
The bond which nature gives, 
Thinking that our remembrance, though 
unspoken, 
May reach her where she lives. 

Not as a child shall we again behold her ; 

For when with raptures wild 
In our embraces we again enfold her, 

She will not be a child ; 



But a fair maiden, in her Father's man- 
sion. 
Clothed with celestial grace ; 



72 Sand of the Desert in an Hourglass 

And beautiful with all the soul's expan- 
sion 
Shall we behold her face. 

And though at times impetuous with emo- 
tion 
And anguish long suppressed, 
The swelling heart heaves moaning like 
the ocean, 
That cannot be at rest, — 

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling 

We may not wholly stay ; 
By silence sanctifying, not concealing, 

The grief that must have way. 



SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR- 
GLASS. 

HANDFUL of red sand, from 
the hot clime 
Of Arab deserts brought. 
Within this glass becomes the spy of 
Time, 
The minister of Thought. 




Sand of the Desert in an Hourglass 7^ 

How many weary centuries has it been 
About those deserts blown ! 

How many strange vicissitudes has seen, 
How many histories known ! 

Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite 
Trampled and passed it o'er, 

When into Egypt from the patriarch's 
sight 
His favorite son they bore. 

Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare. 
Crushed it beneath their tread, 

Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air 
Scattered it as they sped ; 

Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth 

Held close in her caress. 
Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and 
faith 

Illumed the wilderness ; 

Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms 
Pacing the Dead Sea beach. 

And singing slow their old Armenian 
psalms 
In half-articulate speech ; 



74 Sand of the Desert in an Hourglass 

Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate 
With westward steps depart ; 

Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate, 
And resolute in heart ! 

These have passed over it, or may have 
passed ! 

Now in this crystal tower 
Imprisoned by some curious hand at last, 

It counts the passing hour. 

And as I gaze, these narrow walls ex- 
pand ; — 

Before my dreamy eye 
Stretches the desert with its shifting sand, 

Its unimpeded sky. 

And borne aloft by the sustaining blast, 

This little golden thread 
Dilates into a column high and vast, 

A form of fear and dread. 

And onward, and across the setting sun. 
Across the boundless plain. 

The column and its broader shadow run, 
Till thought pursues in vain. 




King lVitlaf*s Drinkmg-Horn 75 

The vision vanishes ! These walls again 

Shut out the lurid sun, 
Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain ; 

The half-hour's sand is run ! 



^ 

« 



KING Vl^ITLAF'S DRINKING-HORN. 

ITLAF, a king of the Saxons, 
Ere yet his last he breathed, 
To the merry monks of Croyland 
His drinking-horn bequeathed, — 

That, whenever they sat at their revels, 
And drank from the golden bowl, 

They might remember the donor, 
And breathe a prayer for his soul. 

So sat they once at Christmas, 

And bade the goblet pass ; 
In their beards the red wine glistened 

Like dew-drops in the grass. 

They drank to the soul of Witlaf, 
They drank to Christ the Lord, 

And to each of the Twelve Apostles, 
Who had preached his holy word. 



y6 King Witlafs Drinking-Horn 

They drank to the Saints and Martyrs 

Of the dismal days of yore, 
And as soon as the horn was empty 

They remembered one Saint more. 

And the reader droned from the pulpit, 
Like the murmur of many bees, 

The legend of good Saint Guthlac, 
And Saint Basil's homilies ; 

Till the great bells of the convent, 
From their prison in the tower, 

Guthlac and Bartholomaeus, 
Proclaimed the midnight hour. 

And the Yule-log cracked in the chimney, 
And the Abbot bowed his head. 

And the fiamelets flapped and flickered, 
But the Abbot was stark and dead. 

Yet still in his pallid fingers 
He clutched the golden bowl. 

In which, like a pearl dissolving. 
Had sunk and dissolved his soul. 

But not for this their revels 
The jovial monks forbore, 




The Singers yy 

For they cried, *^ Fill high the goblet ! 
We must drink to one Saint more ! " 



THE SINGERS. 

OD sent his Singers upon earth 
With songs of sadness and of 
mirth, 

That they might touch the hearts of men, 
And bring them back to heaven again. 

The first, a youth with soul of fire, 
Held in his hand a golden lyre ; 
Through groves he wandered, and by 

streams, 
Playing the music of our dreams. 

The second, with a bearded face, 
Stood singing in the market-place, 
And stirred with accents deep and loud 
The hearts of all the listening crowd. 

A gray old man, the third and last, 
Sang in cathedrals dim and vast. 
While the majestic organ rolled 
Contrition from its mouths of gold. 



78 



Prometheus 



And those who heard the Singers three 
Disputed which the best might be ; 
For still their music seemed to start 
Discordant echoes in each heart. 

But the great Master said, *^ I see 

No best in kind, but in degree ; 

I gave a various gift to each, 

To charm, to strengthen, and to teach. 

"These are the three great chords of 

might, 
And he whose ear is tuned aright 
Will hear no discord in the three, 
But the most perfect harmony." 



PROMETHEUS, 

OR THE poet's FORETHOUGHT. 



F Prometheus, how undaunted 
On Olympus' shining bastions 
His audacious foot he planted, 
Myths are told and songs are chanted, 
Full of promptings and suggestions. 




Prometheus 79 

Beautiful is the tradition 

Of that flight through heavenly portals, 
The old classic superstition 
Of the theft and the transmission 

Of the fire of the Immortals ! 

First the deed of noble daring, 

Born of heavenward aspiration, 
Then the fire with mortals sharing, 
Then the vulture, — the despairing 
Cry of pain on crags Caucasian. 

All is but a symbol painted 

Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer ; 
Only those are crowned and sainted 
Who with grief have been acquainted, 

Making nations nobler, freer. 

In their feverish exultations, 

In their triumph and their yearning, 
In their passionate pulsations. 
In their words among the nations. 
The Promethean fire is burning. 

Shall it, then, be unavailing. 

All this toil for human culture ? 
Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing 



8o Prometheus 

Must they see above them sailing 
O'er life's barren crags the vulture? 

Such a fate as this was Dante's, 

By defeat and exile maddened ; 
Thus were Milton and Cervantes, 
Nature's priests and Corybantes, 
By affliction touched and saddened. 

But the glories so transcendent 

That around their memories cluster, 
And, on all their steps attendant. 
Make their darkened lives resplendent 
With such gleams of inward lustre ! 

All the melodies mysterious, 

Through the dreary darkness chanted ; 
Thoughts in attitudes imperious, 
Voices soft, and deep, and serious. 

Words that whispered, songs that 
haunted ! 

All the soul in rapt suspension, 

All the quivering, palpitating 
Chords of life in utmost tension, 
With the fervor of invention, 

With the rapture of creating ! 



Epimetheus 8i 

Ah, Prometheus ! heaven-scaling 1 

In such hours of exultation 
Even the faintest heart, un quailing. 
Might behold the vulture sailing 

Round the cloudy crags Caucasian ! 

Though to all there be not given 

Strength for such sublime endeavor, 
Thus to scale the walls of heaven, 
And to leaven with fiery leaven. 
All the hearts of men forever ; 

Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted 

Honor and beheve the presage, 
Hold aloft their torches lighted, 
Gleaming through the realms benighted. 
As they onward bear the message ! 



EPIMETHEUS, 

OR THE poet's AFTERTHOUGHT. 

AVE I dreamed ? or was it real. 

What I saw as in a vision, 
ij When to marches hymeneal 
;n the land of the Ideal 
Moved my thought o'er Fields Elysian ? 




82 Epimetheus 

What ! are these the guests whose glances 
Seemed like sunshine gleaming round 
me? 

These the wild, bewildering fancies, 

That with dithyrambic dances 
As with magic circles bound me ? 

Ah ! how cold are their caresses ! 

Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms ! 
Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses, 
And from loose, dishevelled tresses 

Fall the hyacinthine blossoms ! 

O my songs ! whose winsome measures 

Filled my heart with secret rapture ! 
Children of my golden leisures 1 
Must even your delights and pleasures 
Fade and perish with the capture ? 

Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous, 

When they came to me unbidden ; 
Voices single, and in chorus. 
Like the wdld birds singing o'er us 
In the dark of branches hidden. 



Disenchantment ! Disillusion ! 
Must each noble aspiration 



Epimetheus , 83 

Come at last to this conclusion, 
Jarring discord, wild confusion, 
Lassitude, renunciation ? 

Not with steeper fall nor faster. 
From the sun^s serene dominions. 

Not through brighter realms nor vaster, 

In swift ruin and disaster, 

Icarus fell with shattered pinions ! 

Sweet Pandora ! dear Pandora ! 

Why did mighty Jove create thee 
Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora, 
Beautiful as young Aurora, 

If to win thee is to hate thee ? 

No, not hate thee ! for this feeling 
Of unrest and long resistance 

Is but passionate appealing, 

A prophetic whisper stealing 

O'er the chords of our existence. 

Him whom thou dost once enamor, 

Thou, beloved, never leavest ; 
In life's discord, strife, and clamor. 
Still he feels thy spell of glamour ; 
Him of Hope thou ne'er bereavest. 



84 The Ladder of St Augustine 

Weary hearts by thee are lifted, 

Struggling souls by thee are strength- 
ened, 

Clouds of fear asunder rifted, 

Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted, 
Lives, like days in summer, lengthened ! 

Therefore art thou ever dearer, 

O my Sibyl, my deceiver ! 
For thou makest each mystery clearer, 
And the unattained seems nearer. 

When thou fillest my heart with fever ! 

Muse of all the Gifts and Graces ! 

Though the fields around us wither, 
There are ampler realms and spaces, 
Where no foot has left its traces : 

Let us turn and wander thither ! 

THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 

AINT AUGUSTINE ! well hast 
thou said, 
That of our vices we can frame 
A ladder, if we will but tread 

Beneath our feet each deed of shame ! 




The Ladder of St. Augustine 8^ 

All common things, each day's events, 
That with the hour begin and end, 

Our pleasures and our discontents, 
Are rounds by which we may ascend. 

The low desire, the base design, 
That makes another's virtues less ; 

The revel of the ruddy wine, 
And all occasions of excess ; 

The longing for ignoble things ; 

The strife for triumph more than truth ; 
The hardening of the heart, that brings 

Irreverence for the dreams of youth ; 

All thoughts of ill ; all evil deeds. 

That have their root in thoughts of ill ; 

Whatever hinders or impedes 
The action of the nobler will j — 

All these must first be trampled down 
Beneath our feet, if we would gain 

In the bright fields of fair renown 
The right of eminent domain. 

We have not wings, we cannot soar ; 
But we have feet to scale and climb 



86 The Ladder of St. Augustine 

By slow degrees, by more and more, 
The cloudy summits of our time. 

The mighty pyramids of stone 

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, 
When nearer seen, and better known, 

Are but gigantic flights of stairs. 

The distant mountains, that uprear 
Their solid bastions to the skies. 

Are crossed by pathways, that appear 
As we to higher levels rise. 

The heights by great men reached and 
kept 

Were not attained by sudden flight. 
But they, while their companions slept, 

Were toiling upward in the night. 

Standing on what too long we bore 
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, 

We may discern — unseen before — 
A path to higher destinies, 

Nor deem the irrevocable Past 
As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 

If, rising on its wrecks, at last 
To something nobler we attain. 




The Phantom Ship 8j 



THE PHANTOM SHIP. 

N Mather's Magnalia Christi, 
Of the old colonial time, 
Maybe found in prose the legend 
That is here set down in rhyme. 

A ship sailed from New Haven, 
And the keen and frosty airs, 

That filled her sails at parting, 

Were heavy with good men's prayers. 

" O Lord ! if it be thy pleasure " — 
Thus prayed the old divine — 

" To bury our friends in the ocean, 
Take them, for they are thine ! '' 

But Master Lamberton muttered, 
And under his breath said he, 

"This ship is so crank and walty, 
I fear our grave she will be ! " 

And the ships that came from England, 
When the winter months were gone, 

Brought no tidings of this vessel 
Nor of Master Lamberton. 



88 The Phantom Ship 

This put the people to praying 

That the Lord would let them hear 

What in his greater wisdom 

He had done with friends so dear. 

And at last their prayers were answered : 

It was in the month of June, 
An hour before the sunset 

Of a windy afternoon, 

When, steadily steering landward, 

A ship was seen below, 
And they knew it was Lamberton, Master, 

Who sailed so long ago. 

On she came, with a cloud of canvas. 
Right against the wind that blew, 

Until the eye could distinguish 
The faces of the crew. 

Then fell her straining topmasts, 
Hanging tangled in the shrouds, 

And her sails were loosened and lifted. 
And blown away like clouds. 

And the masts, with all their rigging. 
Fell slowly, one by one. 



The Warden of the Cinque Ports 8g 

And the hulk dilated and vanished, 
As a sea-mist in the sun ! 

And the people who saw this marvel 

Each said unto his friend, 
That this was the mould of their vessel, 

And thus her tragic end. 

And the pastor of the village 
Gave thanks to God in prayer, 

That, to quiet their troubled spirits, 
He had sent this Ship of Air. 



% 



THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. 

MIST was driving down the 

British Channel, 
The day was just begun. 
And through the window-panes, on floor 
and panel, 
Streamed the red autumn sun. 

It glanced on flowing flag and rippling 
pennon. 
And the white sails of ships ; 




go The Warden of the Cinque Ports 

And, from the frowning rampart, the black 
cannon 
Hailed it with feverish lips. 

Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, 
and Dover 
Were all alert that day. 
To see the French war-steamers speeding 
over, 
When the fog cleared away. 

Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions, 
Their cannon, through the night. 

Holding their breath, had watched, in 
grim defiance, 
The sea-coast opposite. 

And now they roared at drum-beat from 
their stations 
On every citadel ; 
Each answering each, with morning salu- 
tations, 
That all was well. 

And down the coast, all taking up the 
burden. 
Replied the distant forts, 



The Warden of the Cinque Ports gi 

As if to summon from his sleep the 

Warden 
And Lord of the Cinque Ports. 

Him shall no sunshine from the fields of 
azure, 
No drum-beat from the wall, 
No morning gun from the black fort's 
embrasure, 
Awaken with its call ! 

No more, surveying with an eye impartial 

The long line of the coast, 
Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field 
Marshal 

Be seen upon his post ! 

For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, 

In sombre harness mailed, 
Dreaded of man, and surnamed the De- 
stroyer, 

The rampart wall had scaled. 

He passed into the chamber of the 
sleeper, 
The dark and silent room. 



92 The Jewish Cemetery at Newport 

And as he entered, darker grew, and 
deeper, 
The silence and the gloom. 

He did not pause to parley or dissemble. 
But smote the Warden hoar ; 

Ah ! what a blow ! that made all England 
tremble 
And groan from shore to shore. 

Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon 
waited. 

The sun rose bright overhead ; 
Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated 

That a great man was dead. 



t 



THE JEWISH CEMETERY AT NEWPORT. 

OW Strange it seems ! These He- 
brews in their graves. 
Close by the street of this fair 
seaport town. 
Silent beside the never-silent waves. 
At rest in all this moving up and down ! 




The Jewish Cemetery at Newport g^ 

The trees are white with dust, that o'er 
their sleep 
Wave their broad curtains in the south- 
wind's breath, 
While underneath these leafy tents they 
keep 
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death. 

And these sepulchral stones, so old and 
brown. 
That pave with level flags their burial- 
place, 
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown 
down 
And broken by Moses at the mountain's 
base. 

The very names recorded here are strange. 
Of foreign accent, and of different 
climes ; 

Alvares and Rivera interchange 

With Abraham and Jacob of old times. 

" Blessed be God Ifor he created Death ! '' 
The mourners said, ^' and Death is rest 
and peace ; " 



g4 The Jewish Cemetery at Newport 

Then added, in the certainty of faith, 
" And giveth Life that nevermore shall 
cease/' 



Closed are the portals of their Synagogue, 
No Psalms of David now the silence 
break. 

No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue 
In the grand dialect the Prophets spake. 

Gone are the living, but the dead remain, 
And not neglected ; for a hand unseen. 

Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain. 
Still keeps their graves and their re- 
membrance green. 

How came they here ? What burst of 
Christian hate, 
What persecution, merciless and blind. 
Drove o'er the sea — that desert deso- 
late — 
These Ishmaels and Hagars of man- 
kind ? 

They lived in narrow streets and lanes 
obscure, 
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and 



The Jewish Cemetery at Newport 95 

Taught in the school of patience to endure 
The life of anguish and the death of 
fire. 



All their lives long, with the unleavened 
bread 
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears, 
The wasting famine of the heart they fed. 
And slaked its thirst with marah of their 
tears. 

Anathema maranatha ! was the cry 

That rang from town to town, from street 
to street ; 
At every gate the accursed Mordecai 
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned 
by Christian feet. 

Pride and humiliation hand in hand 
Walked with them through the world 
where'er they went ; 
Trampled and beaten were they as the 
sand, 
And yet unshaken as the continent. 

For in the background figures vague and 
vast 



g6 Oliver Basselin 

Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sub- 
lime, 
And all the great traditions of the Past 
They saw reflected in the coming time. 

And thus forever with reverted look 
The mystic volume of the world they 
read, 

Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book, 
Till life became a Legend of the Dead. 

But ah ! what once has been shall be no 
more ! 
The groaning earth in travail and in 
pain 
Brings forth its races, but does not restore, 
And the dead nations never rise again. 

% 

OLIVER BASSELIN. 

N the Valley of the Vire 

Still is seen an ancient mill, 
With its gables quaint and queer, 
And beneath the window-sill, 
On the stone, 
These words alone : 
" Oliver Basselin lived here.'' 




Oliver Basseltn 97 

Far above it, on the steep, 

Ruined stands the old Chateau ; 
Nothing but the donjon-keep 
Left for shelter or for show. 
Its vacant eyes 
Stare at the skies. 
Stare at the valley green and deep. 

Once a convent, old and brown. 

Looked, but ah ! it looks no more, 
From the neighboring hillside down 
On the rushing and the roar 
Of the stream 
Whose sunny gleam 
Cheers the little Norman town. 

In that darksome mill of stone, 
To the water's dash and din. 
Careless, humble, and unknown, 
Sang the poet Basselin 
Songs that fill 
That ancient mill 
With a splendor of its own. 

Never feeling of unrest 

Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed ; 
Only made to be his nest. 

All the lovely valley seemed ; 



g8 Oliver Basselin 

No desire 
Of soaring higher 
Stirred or fluttered in his breast. 

True, his songs were not divine ; 

Were not songs of that high art, 
Which, as winds do in the pine, 
Find an answer in each heart ; 
But the mirth 
Of this green earth 
Laughed and revelled in his line. 

From the alehouse and the inn. 
Opening on the narrow street, 
Came the loud, convivial din. 
Singing and applause of feet, 
The laughing lays 
That in those days 
Sang the poet Basselin. 

In the castle, cased in steel. 

Knights, who fought at Agincourt, 
Watched and waited, spur on heel ; 
But the poet sang for sport 
Songs that rang 
Another clang, 
Songs that lowlier hearts could feel. 



Oliver Basselin gg 

In the convent, clad in gray, 

Sat the monks in lonely cells. 
Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray, 
And the poet heard their bells ; 
But his rhymes 
Found other chimes, 
Nearer to the earth than they. 

Gone are all the barons bold, 

Gone are all the knights and squires, 
Gone the abbot stern and cold. 
And the brotherhood of friars ; 
Not a name 
Remains to fame. 
From those mouldering days of old ! 

But the poet's memory here 

Of the landscape makes a part ; 
Like the river, swift and clear, 
Flows his song through many a heart ; 
Haunting still 
That ancient mill 
In the Valley of the Vire. 



!00 Victor Galbraith 



VICTOR GALBRAITH. 




NDER the walls of Monterey 
At daybreak the bugles began to 

play, 
Victor Galbraith ! 
In the mist of the morning damp and gray, 
These were the words they seemed to say : 
" Come forth to thy death, 
Victor Galbraith ! " 

Forth he came, with a martial tread ; 
Firm was his step, erect his head ; 

Victor Galbraith, 
He who so well the bugle played. 
Could not mistake the words it said : 
" Come forth to thy death, 

Victor Galbraith ! " 

He looked at the earth, he looked at the 

sky. 
He looked at the files of musketry, 

Victor Galbraith ! 
And he said, with a steady voice and eye, 
" Take good aim ; I am ready to die ! " 

Thus challenges death 

Victor Galbraith. 



l/^ictor Galbraith loi 

Twelve fiery tongues flashed straight and 

red, 
Six leaden balls on their errand sped ; 

Victor Galbraith 
Falls to the ground, but he is not dead : 
His name was not stamped on those balls 
of lead. 

And they only scath 
Victor Galbraith. 

Three balls are in his breast and brain, 
But he rises out of the dust again, 

Victor Galbraith ! 
The water he drinks has a bloody stain ; 
" Oh kill me, and put me out of my pain ! " 

In his agony prayeth 

Victor Galbraith ! 

Forth dart once more those tongues of 

flame, 
And the bugler has died a death of shame, 

Victor Galbraith ! 
His soul has gone back to whence it came, 
And no one answers to the name, 
When the Sergeant saith, 
"Victor Galbraith!^' 



I02 My Lost Youth 

Under the walls of Monterey 
By night a bugle is heard to play, 

Victor Galbraith ! 
Through the mist of the valley damp and 

gray 
The sentinels hear the sound, and say, 
" That is the wraith 
Of Victor Galbraith ! " 




MY LOST YOUTH. 

FTEN I think of the beautiful 
town 
That is seated by the sea ; 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town, 
And my youth comes back to me. 
And a verse of a Lapland song 
Is haunting my memory still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees. 
And catch, in sudden gleams. 



My Lost Youth 103 

The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, 
And islands that were the Hesperides 
Of all my boyish dreams. 

And the burden of that old song, 
It murmurs and whispers still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the black wharves and the 
slips, 
And the sea-tides tossing free ; 
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
And the magic of the sea. 

And the voice of that wayward song 
Is singing and saying still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the bulwarks by the shore, 

And the fort upon the hill ; 
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar, 
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er, 

And the bugle wild and shrill. 
And the music of that old song 



I04 My Lost Youth 

Throbs in my memory still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the sea-fight far away, 
How it thundered o'er the tide ! 
And the dead captains, as they lay 
In their graves, overlooking the tranquil 
bay. 
Where they in battle died. 

And the sound of that mournful song 
Goes through me with a thrill : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I can see the breezy dome of groves, 
The shadows of Deering's Woods ; 
And the friendships old and the early 

loves 
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of 
doves 
In quiet neighborhoods. 

And the verse of that sweet old song, 
It flutters and murmurs still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 



My Lost Youth lo^ 

And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the gleams and glooms that 
dart 
Across the school-boy's brain ; 
The song and the silence in the heart, 
That in part are prophecies, and in part 
Are longings wild and vain. 

And the voice of that fitful song 
Sings on, and is never still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

There are things of which I may not 
speak ; 
There are dreams that cannot die ; 
There are thoughts that make the strong 

heart weak. 
And bring a pallor into the cheek, 
And a mist before the eye. 

And the words of that fatal song 
Come over me like a chill : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 



ro6 My Lost Youth 

Strange to me now are the forms I meet 

When I visit the dear old town ; 
But the native air is pure and sweet, 
And the trees that o'ershadow each well- 
known street, 
As they balance up and down, 
Are singing the beautiful song, 
Are sighing and whispering still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, 

And with joy that is almost pain 
My heart goes back to wander there, 
And among the dreams of the days that 
were, 
I find my lost youth again. 

And the strange and beautiful song, 
The groves are repeating it still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 



^ 




The Ropewalk toy 



THE ROPEWALK. 

N that building, long and low, 
With its windows all a-row. 
Like the port-holes of a hulk, 
Human spiders spin and spin. 
Backward down their threads so thin 
Dropping, each a hempen bulk. 

At the end, an open door ; 
Squares of sunshine on the floor 

Light the long and dusky lane ; 
And the whirring of a wheel, 
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel 

All its spokes are in my brain. 

As the spinners to the end 
Downward go and reascend. 

Gleam the long threads in the sun \ 
While within this brain of mine 
Cobwebs brighter and more fine 

By the busy wheel are spun. 

Two fair maidens in a swing, 
Like white doves upon the wing. 
First before my vision pass ; 



io8 The Ropewalk 

Laughing, as their gentle hands 
Closely clasp the twisted strands, 
At their shadow on the grass. 

Then a booth of mountebanks, 
With its smell of tan and planks, 

And a girl poised high in air 
On a cord, in spangled dress, 
With a faded loveliness, 

And a weary look of care. 

Then a homestead among farms. 
And a woman with bare arms 

Drawing water from a well ; 
As the bucket mounts apace, 
With it mounts her own fair face, 

As at some magician's spell. 

Then an old man in a tower. 
Ringing loud the noontide hour, 

While the rope coils round and round 
Like a serpent at his feet, 
And again, in swift retreat. 

Nearly lifts him from the ground. 

Then within a prison-yard. 
Faces fixed, and stern, and hard, 



The Ropewalk 109 

Laughter and indecent mirth ; 
Ah ! it is the gallows-tree ! 
Breath of Christian charity, 

Blow, and sweep it from the earth ! 

Then a school-boy, with his kite 
Gleaming in a sky of light, 

And an eager, upward look j 
Steeds pursued through lane and field ; 
Fowlers with their snares concealed ; 

And an angler, by a brook. 

Ships rejoicing in the breeze, 
Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas. 

Anchors dragged through faithless 
sand ; 
Sea-fog drifting overhead. 
And, with lessening line and lead, 

Sailors feeling for the land. 

All these scenes do I behold. 
These, and many left untold. 

In that building long and low ; 
While the wheel goes round and round, 
With a drowsy, dreamy sound. 

And the spinners backward go. 




no The Golden Mile-Stone 



THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE. 

EAFLESS are the trees; their 
purple branches 
Spread themselves abroad, like 

reefs of coral, 
Rising silent 
In the Red Sea of the winter sunset. 

From the hundred chimneys of the vil- 
lage, 
Like the Afreet in the Arabian story. 

Smoky columns 
Tower aloft into the air of amber. 

At the window winks the flickering fire- 
light ; 

Here and there the lamps of evening 
glimmer, 

Social watch-fires 

Answering one another through the dark- 
ness. 

On the hearth the lighted logs are glow- 
ing, 
And like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree 



The Golden Mile-Stone i/i 

For its freedom 
Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in 
them. 

By the fireside there are old men seated, 
Seeing ruined cities in the ashes, 

Asking sadly 
Of the Past what it can ne'er restore 
them. 

By the fireside there are youthful dream- 
ers, 

Building castles fair, with stately stair- 
ways. 

Asking blindly 

Of the Future what it cannot give them. 

By the fireside tragedies are acted 

In whose scenes appear two actors only, 

Wife and husband. 
And above them God the sole spectator. 

By the fireside there are peace and com- 
fort, 

Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful 
faces, 

Waiting, watching 

For a well-known footstep in the passage. 



112 The Golden Mile-Stone 

Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile- 
Stone ; 

Is the central point, from which he meas- 
ures 

Every distance 

Through the gateways of the world around 
him. 

In his farthest wanderings still he sees it ; 
Hears the talking flame, the answering 

night-wind, 

As he heard them 
When he sat with those who were, but are 

not. 

Happy he whom neither wealth nor 
fashion, 

Nor the march of the encroaching city. 
Drives an exile 

From the hearth of his ancestral home- 
stead. 

We may build more splendid habitations. 
Fill our rooms with paintings and with 
sculptures. 
But we cannot 
Buy with gold the old associations ! 




Santa Filomena n^ 



SANTA FILOMENA. 

HE NE'ER a noble deed is 

wrought, 
Whene'er is spoken a noble 
thought, 
Our hearts, in glad surprise, 
To higher levels rise. 

The tidal wave of deeper souls 
Into our inmost being rolls, 

And lifts us unawares 

Out of all meaner cares. 

Honor to those whose words or deeds 
Thus help us in our daily needs, 
And by their overflow 
Raise us from what is low ! 

Thus thought I, as by night I read 

Of the great army of the dead, 
The trenches cold and damp, 
The starved and frozen camp, — 

The wounded from the battle-plain, 
In dreary hospitals of pain, 



114 Santa Filomena 

The cheerless corridors, 
The cold and stony floors. 

Lo ! in that house of misery 

A lady with a lamp I see 

Pass through the glimmering gloom, 
And flit from room to room. 

And slow, as in a dream of bliss. 
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss 
Her shadow, as it falls 
Upon the darkening walls. 

As if a door in heaven should be 
Opened and then closed suddenly, 
The vision came and went, 
The light shone and was spent. 

On England's annals, through the long 
Hereafter of her speech and song, 

That light its rays shall cast 

From portals of the past. 

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand 
In the great history of the land, 

A noble type of good. 

Heroic womanhood. 



Daybreak n^ 

Nor even shall be wanting here 
The palm, the lily, and the spear, 

The symbols that of yore 

Saint Filomena bore. 



DAYBREAK. 




WIND came up out of the sea, 
And said, " O mists, make room 
for me." 



It hailed the ships, and cried, " Sail on, 
Ye mariners, the night is gone." 

And hurried landward far away, 
Crying, " Awake ! it is the day." 

It said unto the forest, " Shout ! 
Hang all your leafy banners out ! " 



It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, 
And said, " O bird, awake and sing." 



And o'er the farms, " O chanticleer. 
Your clarion blow ; the day is near.'' 



//6 Fiftieth Birthday of Agassi:^ 

It whispered to the fields of corn, 

" Bow down, and hail the coming morn.'' 

It shouted through the belfry-tower, 
" Awake, O bell ! proclaim the hour." 

It crossed the churchyard with a sigh, 
And said, " Not yet ! in quiet lie." 



THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGASSIZ. 
May 28, 1857. 

r was fifty years ago 

In the pleasant month of May, 
In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, 

A child in its cradle lay. 

And Nature, the old nurse, took 

The child upon her knee. 
Saying : " Here is a story-book 

Thy Father has written for thee." 

" Come, wander with me," she said, 

" Into regions yet untrod ; 
And read what is still unread 

In the manuscripts of God." 




Fiftieth Birthday of Agassi^ 117 

And he wandered away and away 
With Nature, the dear old nurse, 

Who sang to him night and day 
The rhymes of the universe. 

And whenever the way seemed long, 

Or his heart began to fail, 
She would sing a more wonderful song, 

Or tell a more marvellous tale. 

So she keeps him still a child, 

And will not let him go, 
Though at times his heart beats wild 

For the beautiful Pays de Vaud ; 

Though at times he hears in his dreams 
The Ranz des Vaches of old, 

And the rush of mountain streams 
From glaciers clear and cold ; 

And the mother at home says, " Hark ! 

For his voice I listen and yearn ; 
It is growing late and dark. 

And my boy does not return ! " 




ii8 The Children's Hour 



THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. 

ETWEEN the dark and the day- 
light, 
When the night is beginning to 
lower, 
Comes a pause in the day's occupations, 
That is known as the Children's Hour. 

I hear in the chamber above me 

The patter of little feet, 
The sound of a door that is opened, 

And voices soft and sweet. 

From my study I see in the lamplight. 
Descending the broad hall stair, 

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, 
And Edith with golden hair. 

A whisper, and then a silence : 
Yet I know by their merry eyes 

They are plotting and planning together 
To take me by surprise. 

A sudden rush from the stairway, 
A sudden raid from the hall ! 



The Children* s Hour 119 

By three doors left unguarded 
They enter my castle wall ! 

They climb up into my turret 

O'er the arms and back of my chair ; 

If I try to escape, they surround me ; 
They seem to be everywhere. 

They almost devour me with kisses, 
Their arms about me entwine. 

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! 

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, 
Because you have scaled the wall, 

Such an old mustache as I am 
Is not a match for you all ! 

I have you fast in my fortress. 

And will not let you depart, 
But put you down into the dungeon 

In the round-tower of my heart. 

And there will I keep you forever. 

Yes, forever and a day, 
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, 

And moulder in dust away ! 



120 Enceladus 




ENCELADUS. 

NDER Mount Etna he lies, 

It is slumber, it is not death ; 
For he struggles at times to arise, 
And above him the lurid skies 
Are hot with his fiery breath. 

The crags are piled on his breast, 

The earth is heaped on his head ; 
But the groans of his wild unrest. 
Though smothered and half suppressed, 
Are heard, and he is not dead. 

And the nations far away 

Are watching with eager eyes ; 

They talk together and say, 

" To-morrow, perhaps to-day, 
Enceladus will arise ! '' 

And the old gods, the austere 

Oppressors in their strength, 
Stand aghast and white with fear 
At the ominous sounds they hear, 

And tremble, and mutter, " At length ! " 



Paul Revere* s Ride 121 

Ah me ! for the land that is sown 

With the harvest of despair ! 
Where the burning cinders, blown 
From the lips of the overthrown 

Enceladus, fill the air. 

Where ashes are heaped in drifts 

Over vineyard and field and town, 
Whenever he starts and lifts 
His head through the blackened rifts 
Of the crags that keep him down. 

See, see ! the red light shines ! 

'T is the glare of his awful eyes ! 
And the storm- wind shouts through the 

pines 
Of Alps and of Apennines, 

"Enceladus, arise!" 

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. 

ISTEN, my children, and you 
shall hear 
Of the midnight ride of Paul 
Revere, 
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy- 
five; 




122 Paul Reveres Ride 

Hardly a man is now alive 
Who remembers that famous day and 
year. 

He said to his friend, " If the British 

march 
By land or sea from the town to-night, 
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 
Of the North Church tower as a signal 

light,— 
One, if by land, and two, if by sea ; 
And I on the opposite shore will be. 
Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
Through every Middlesex village and 

farm. 
For the country folk to be up and to arm." 

Then he said, " Good night ! " and with 

muffled oar 
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore. 
Just as the moon rose over the bay. 
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay 
The Somerset, British man-of-war ; 
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 
Across the moon like a prison bar. 
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified 
By its own reflection in the tide. 



Paul Revere' s Ride 12^ 

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and 

street, 
Wanders and watches with eager ears, 
Till in the silence around him he hears 
The muster of men at the barrack door, 
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, 
And the measured tread of the grenadiers. 
Marching down to their boats on the 

shore. 

Then he climbed the tower of the Old 

North Church, 
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread. 
To the belfry-chamber overhead, 
And startled the pigeons from their perch 
On the sombre rafters, that round him 

made 
Masses and moving shapes of shade, — 
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall. 
To the highest window in the wall, 
Where he paused to listen and look down 
A moment on the roofs of the town, 
And the moonlight flowing over all. 

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, 
In their night-encampment on the hill, 
Wrapped in silence so deep and still 
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, 



124 Paul Revere* s Ride 

The watchful night-wind, as it went 

Creeping along from tent to tent, 

And seeming to whisper, " All is well ! " 

A moment only he feels the spell 

Of the place and the hour, and the secret 

dread 
Of the lonely belfry and the dead ; 
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent 
On a shadowy something far away, 
Where the river widens to meet the bay, — 
A line of black that bends and floats 
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 
On the opposite shore walked Paul 

Revere. 
Now he patted his horse's side. 
Now gazed at the landscape far and near, 
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth. 
And turned and tightened his saddle- 
girth ; 
But mostly he watched with eager search 
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church, 
As it rose above the graves on the hill, 
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 
And lo ! as he looks, on the belfry's 
height 



Paul Revere s Ride 12^ 

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light ! 
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he 

turns, 
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 
A second lamp in the belfry burns ! 

A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the 
dark. 

And beneath, from the pebbles, in pass- 
ing, a spark 

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and 
fleet: 

That was all ! And yet, through the gloom 
and the light. 

The fate of a nation was riding that night ; 

And the spark struck out by that steed, in 
his flight. 

Kindled the land into flame with its heat. 

He has left the village and mounted the 

steep, 
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and 

deep, 
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides ; 
And under the alders, that skirt its edge, 
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the 

ledge, 



126 Paul Revere' s Ride 

Is heard the tramp of his steed as he 
rides. 

It was twelve by the village clock, 
When he crossed the bridge into Medford 

town. 
He heard the crowing of the cock, 
And the barking of the farmer's dog, 
And felt the damp of the river fog, 
That rises after the sun goes down. 

It was one by the village clock. 
When he galloped into Lexington. 
He saw the gilded weathercock 
Swim in the moonlight as he passed, 
And the meeting-house windows, blank 

and bare. 
Gaze at him with a spectral glare. 
As if they already stood aghast 
At the bloody work they would look upon. 

It was two by the village clock. 

When he came to the bridge in Concord 

town. 
He heard the bleating of the flock. 
And the twitter of birds among the trees. 
And felt the breath of the morning breeze 
Blowing over the meadows brown. 



Paul Revere* s Ride i2y 

And one was safe and asleep in his bed 
Who at the bridge would be first to fall, 
Who that day would be lying dead, 
Pierced by a British musket-ball. 

You know the rest. In the books you 

have read, 
How the British Regulars fired and 

fled,— 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farm-yard 

wall. 
Chasing the red-coats down the lane. 
Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load. 

So through the night rode Paul Revere ; 
And so through the night went his cry of 

alarm 
To every Middlesex village and farm, — 
A cry of defiance and not of fear, 
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the 

door, 
And a word that shall echo forevermore ! 
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, 
Through all our history, to the last, 



128 King Robert of Sicily 

In the hour of darkness and peril and 

need, 
The people will waken and listen to hear 
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 
And the midnight message of Paul 

Revere. 



% 



KING ROBERT OF SICILY. 

OBERT of Sicily, brother of Pope 
Urbane 
And Valmond, Emperor of AUe- 
maine, 
Apparelled in magnificent attire. 
With retinue of many a knight and squire, 
On St. John's eve, at vespers proudly sat, 
And heard the priests chant the Magni- 
ficat. 
And as he listened, o'er and o'er again 
Repeated, like a burden or refrain, 
He caught the words, " Deposuit potentes 
De sede, et exaltavit humiles ; " 
And slowly lifting up his kingly head. 
He to a learned clerk beside him said, 
" What mean these words ? " The clerk 
made answer meet, 




King Robert of Sicily i2g 

" He has put down the mighty from their 

seat, 
And has exalted them of low degree." 
Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully, 
" 'T is well that such seditious words are 

sung 
Only by priests and in the Latin tongue ; 
For unto priests and people be it known, 
There is no power can push me from my 

throne ! " 
And leaning back, he yawned and fell 

asleep, 
Lulled by the chant monotonous and 

deep. 

When he awoke, it was already night ; 
The church was empty, and there was no 

light, 
Save where the lamps, that glimmered few 

and faint, 
Lighted a little space before some saint. 
He started from his seat and gazed 

around. 
But saw no living thing and heard no 

sound. 
He groped towards the door, but it was 

locked ; 



t^o King Robert of Sicily 

He cried aloud, and listened, and then 
knocked, 

And uttered awful threatenings and com- 
plaints, 

And imprecations upon men and saints. 

The sounds reechoed from the roof and 
walls 

As if dead priests were laughing in their 
stalls. 

At length the sexton, hearing from with- 
out 
The tumult of the knocking and the 

shout. 
And thinking thieves were in the house of 

prayer. 
Came with his lantern, asking, " Who is 

there ? " 
Half choked with rage, King Robert 

fiercely said, 
"Open: 'tis I, the King! Art thou 

afraid ? " 
The frightened sexton, muttering, with a 

curse, 
" This is some drunken vagabond, or 

worse ! " 
Turned the great key and flung the portal 

wide j 



King Robert of Sicily i^i 

A man rushed by him at a single stride, 
Haggard, half naked, without hat or 

cloak, 
Who neither turned, nor looked at him, 

nor spoke. 
But leaped into the blackness of the 

night, 
And vanished like a spectre from his 

sight. 

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane 
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, 
Despoiled of his magnificent attire. 
Bareheaded, breathless, and besprent with 

mire, 
With sense of wrong and outrage desper- 
ate. 
Strode on and thundered at the palace 

gate; 
Rushed through the courtyard, thrusting 

in his rage 
To right and left each seneschal and page, 
And hurried up the broad and sounding 

stair, 
His white face ghastly in the torches' 

glare. 
From hall to hall he passed with breath- 
less speed ; 



t^2 King Robert of Sicily 

Voices and cries he heard, but did not 

heed, 
Until at last he reached the banquet-room, 
Blazing with light, and breathing with 

perfume. 

There on the dais sat another king, 
Wearing his robes, his crown, his signet- 
ring, 
King Robert's self in features, form, and 

height. 
But all transfigured with angelic light ! 
It was an Angel ; and his presence there 
With a divine effulgence filled the air. 
An exaltation, piercing the disguise. 
Though none the hidden Angel recognize. 

A moment speechless, motionless, amazed. 
The throneless monarch on the Angel 

gazed. 
Who met his look of anger and surprise 
With the divine compassion of his eyes ; 
Then said, " Who art thou ? and why 

com'st thou here ? " 
To which King Robert answered with a 

sneer, 
" I am the King, and come to claim my 

own 



King Robert of Sicily i^y 

From an impostor, who usurps my 
throne 1 " 

And suddenly, at these audacious words, 

Up sprang the angry guests, and drew 
their swords ; 

The Angel answered, with unruffled brow, 

" Nay, not the King, but the King's 
Jester, thou 

Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scal- 
loped cape, 

And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape ; 

Thou shalt obey my servants when they 
call. 

And wait upon my henchmen in the 
hall ! " 

Deaf to King Robert's threats and cries 
and prayers, 

They thrust him from the hall and down 
the stairs ; 

A group of tittering pages ran before, 

And as they opened wide the folding-door, 

His heart failed, for he heard, with strange 
alarms. 

The boisterous laughter of the men-at- 
arms. 

And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring 



1^4 f^i^g Robert of Sicily 

With the mock plaudits of ^' Long live the 

King ! " 

Next morning, waking with the day's first 

beam, 
He said within himself, **It was a 

dream ! " 
But the straw rustled as he turned his 

head. 
There were the cap and bells beside his 

bed, 
Around him rose the bare, discolored 

walls. 
Close by, the steeds were champing in 

their stalls, 
And in the corner, a revolting shape. 
Shivering and chattering sat the wretched 

ape. 
It was no dream ; the world he loved so 

much 
Had turned to dust and ashes at his 

touch ! 

Days came and went ; and now returned 

again 
To Sicily the old Saturnian reign ; 
Under the AngePs governance benign 



King Robert of Sicily i^^ 

The happy island danced with corn and 

wine, 
And deep within the mountain's burning 

breast 
Enceladus, the giant, was at rest. 

Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his 

fate, 
Sullen and silent and disconsolate. 
Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters 

wear. 
With look bewildered and a vacant stare, 
Close shaven above the ears, as monks 

are shorn, 
By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to 

scorn, 
His only friend the ape, his only food 
What others left, — he still was unsub- 
dued. 
And when the Angel met him on his way. 
And half in earnest, half in jest, would 

say. 
Sternly, though tenderly, that he might 

feel 
The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel, 
" Art thou the King ? " the passion of his 

woe 



1^6 King Robert of Sicily 

Burst from him in resistless overflow, 
And, lifting high his forehead, he would 

fling 
The haughty answer back, " I am, I am 

the King ! " 

Almost three years were ended; when 

there came 
Ambassadors of great repute and name 
From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, 
Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Ur- 
bane 
By letter summoned them forthwith to 

come 
On Holy Thursday to his city of Rome. 
The Angel with great joy received his 

guests, 
And gave them presents of embroidered 

vests. 
And velvet mantles with rich ermine 

lined. 
And rings and jewels of the rarest kind. 
Then he departed with them o'er the sea 
Into the lovely land of Italy, 
Whose loveliness was more resplendent 

made 
By the mere passing of that cavalcade, 



King Robert of Sicily i^y 

With plumes, and cloaks, and housings, 
and the stir 

Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur. 

And lo ! among the menials, in mock 
state, 

Upon a piebald steed with shambling 
gait, 

His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the 
wind, 

The solemn ape demurely perched behind. 

King Robert rode, making huge merri- 
ment 

In all the country towns through which 
they went. 

The Pope received them with great pomp 

and blare 
Of bannered trumpets, on Saint Peter's 

square, 
Giving his benediction and embrace, 
Fervent, and full of apostolic grace. 
While with congratulations and with 

prayers 
He entertained the Angel unawares, 
Robert, the Jester, bursting through the 

crowd, 
Into their presence rushed, and cried 

aloud, 



1^8 King Robert of Sicily 

" I am the King ! Look, and behold in 

me 
Robert, your brother, King of Sicily ! 
This man, who wears my semblance to 

your eyes, 
Is an impostor in a king's disguise. 
Do you not know me ? does no voice 

within 
Answer my cry, and say we are akin ? " 
The Pope in silence, but with troubled 

mien. 
Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene ; 
The Emperor, laughing, said, " It is 

strange sport 
To keep a madman for thy Fool at 

court ! " 
And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace 
Was hustled back among the populace. 

In solemn state the Holy Week went by, 
And Easter Sunday gleamed upon the 

sky; 
The presence of the Angel, with its light. 
Before the sun rose, made the city bright. 
And with new fervor filled the hearts of 

men. 
Who felt that Christ indeed had risen 

again. 



King Robert of Sicily i^g 

Even the Jester, on his bed of straw, 
With haggard eyes the unwonted splendor 

saw, 
He felt within a power unfelt before, 
And, kneeling humbly on his chamber 

floor, 
He heard the rushing garments of the 

Lord 
Sweep through the silent air, ascending 

heavenward. 

And now the visit ending, and once more 
Valmond returning to the Danube's shore, 
Homeward the Angel journeyed, and 

again 
The land was made resplendent with his 

train, 
Flashing along the towns of Italy 
Unto Salerno, and from thence by sea. 
And when once more within Palermo's 

wall, 
And, seated on the throne in his great 

hall, 
He heard the Angelus from convent 

towers. 
As if the better world conversed with 

ours. 



T40 King Robert of Sicily 

He beckoned to King Robert to draw 

nigher, 
And with a gesture bade the rest retire ; 
And when they were alone, the Angel 

said, . 
"Art thou the King?" Then, bowing 

down his head, 
King Robert crossed both hands upon his 

breast. 
And meekly answered him : " Thou know- 

est best ! 
My sins as scarlet are ; let me go hence, 
And in some cloister's school of peni- 
tence. 
Across those stones, that pave the way to 

heaven, 
Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul be 

shriven ! " 

The Angel smiled, and from his radiant 

face 
A holy light illumined all the place, 
And through the open window, loud and 

clear. 
They heard the monks chant in the 

chapel near. 
Above the stir and tumult of the street : 



King Robert of Sicily 141 

" He has put down the mighty from their 

seat, 
And has exalted them of low degree ! '' 
And through the chant a second melody- 
Rose like the throbbing of a single 

string : 
" I am an Angel, and thou art the King I " 

King Robert, who was standing near the 

throne, 
Lifted his eyes, and lo ! he was alone ! 
But all apparelled as in days of old, 
With ermined mantle and with cloth of 

gold; 
And when his courtiers came, they found 

him there 
Kneeling upon the floor, absorbed in 

silent prayer. 




142 The Cumberland 



THE CUMBERLAND. 

T anchor in Hampton Roads we 
lay, 
On board of the Cumberland, 
sloop-of-war ; 
And at times from the fortress across the 
bay 
The alarum of drums swept past. 
Or a bugle blast 
From the camp on the shore. 

Then far away to the south uprose 

A little feather of snow-white smoke, 
And we knew that the iron ship of our 
foes 
Was steadily steering its course 
To try the force 
Of our ribs of oak. 

Down upon us heavily runs. 

Silent and sullen, the floating fort ; 
Then comes a puff of smoke from her 
guns. 
And leaps the terrible death, 
With fiery breath, 
From each open port. 



The Cumberland 14^ 

We are not idle, but send her straight 
Defiance back in a full broadside ! 
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, 
Rebounds our heavier hail 
From each iron scale 
Of the monster's hide. 

" Strike your flag ! " the rebel cries. 

In his arrogant old plantation strain. 
" Never ! " our gallant Morris replies ; 
"It is better to sink than to yield ! " 
And the whole air pealed 
With the cheers of our men. 

Then, like a kraken huge and black, 

She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp ! 
Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, 
With a sudden shudder of death. 
And the cannon's breath 
For her dying gasp. 

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, 
Still floated our flag at the mainmast 
head. 
Lord, how beautiful was Thy day ! 
Every waft of the air 
Was a whisper of prayer, 
Or a dirge for the dead. 



144 ^ Day of Sunshine 

Ho ! brave hearts that went down in the 
seas ! 
Ye are at peace in the troubled stream ; 
Ho ! brave land ! with hearts like these, 
Thy flag, that is rent in twain, 
Shall be one again, 
And without a seam ! 




A DAY OF SUNSHINE. 

GIFT of God ! O perfect day : 
Whereon shall no man work, but 
play; 

Whereon it is enough for me. 

Not to be doing, but to be ! 

Through every fibre of my brain. 
Through every nerve, through every vein, 
I feel the electric thrill, the touch 
Of life, that seems almost too much. 

I hear the wind among the trees 
Playing celestial symphonies ; 
I see the branches downward bent. 
Like keys of some great instrument. 



A Day of Sunshine 14^ 

And over me unrolls on high 
The splendid scenery of the sky, 
Where through a sapphire sea the sun 
Sails like a golden galleon, 

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West, 
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest, 
Whose steep sierra far uplifts 
Its craggy summits white with drifts. 

Blow, winds ! and waft through all the 

rooms 
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms ! 
Blow, winds 1 and bend within my reach 
The fiery blossoms of the peach ! 

O Life and Love ! O happy throng 
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song ! 
O heart of man ! canst thou not be 
Blithe as the air is, and as free ? 




146 Weariness 

WEARINESS. 

LITTLE feet! that such long 

years 
Must wander on through hopes 
and fears, 
Must ache and bleed beneath your load ; 
I, nearer to the wayside inn 
Where toil shall cease and rest begin, 
Am weary, thinking of your road ! 

O little hands ! that, weak or strong, 
Have still to serve or rule so long, 

Have still so long to give or ask ; 
I, who so much with book and pen 
Have toiled among my fellow-men, 

Am weary, thinking of your task. 

O little hearts ! that throb and beat 
With such impatient, feverish heat. 

Such limitless and strong desires ; 
Mine, that so long has glowed and burned. 
With passions into ashes turned, 

Now covers and conceals its fires. 

O little souls ! as pure and white 
And crystalline as rays of light 



f^ox Populi i4y 

Direct from heaven, their source divine ; 
Refracted through the mist of years, 
How red my setting sun appears, 

How lurid looks this soul of mine ! 




VOX POPULI. 

HEN Mazarvan the Magician 
Journeyed westward through 
Cathay, 

Nothing heard he but the praises 
Of Badoura on his way. 

But the lessening rumor ended 

When he came to Khaledan, 
There the folk were talking only 

Of Prince Camaralzaman. 

So it happens with the poets : 
Every province hath its own ; 

Camaralzaman is famous 
Where Badoura is unknown. 



148 The Legend Beautiful 



\^y>&^ 



THE LEGEND BEAUTIFUL. 

ADST thou Stayed, I must have 
fled!" 
That is what the Vision said. 



In his chamber all alone, 
Kneeling on the floor of stone, 
Prayed the Monk in deep contrition 
For his sins of indecision, 
Prayed for greater self-denial 
In temptation and in trial ; 
It was noonday by the dial. 
And the Monk was all alone. 

Suddenly, as if it lightened, 
An unwonted splendor brightened 
All within him and without him 
In that narrow cell of stone ; 
And he saw the Blessed Vision 
Of our Lord, with light Elysian 
Like a vesture wrapped about Him, 
Like a garment round Him thrown. 

Not as crucified and slain. 
Not in agonies of pain, 



The Legend Beautiful 149 

Not with bleeding hands and feet, 
Did the Monk his Master see ; 
But as in the village street, 
In the house or harvest-field, 
Halt and lame and blind He healed, 
When He walked in Galilee. 

In an attitude imploring, 

Hands upon his bosom crossed. 

Wondering, worshipping, adoring. 

Knelt the Monk in rapture lost. 

Lord, he thought, in heaven that reignest, 

Who am I, that thus thou deignest 

To reveal thyself to me ? 

Who am I, that from the centre 

Of thy glory thou shouldst enter 

This poor cell, my guest to be ? 

Then amid his exaltation, 
Loud the convent bell appalling. 
From its belfry calling, calling, 
Rang through court and corridor 
With persistent iteration 
He had never heard before. 
It was now the appointed hour 
When alike in shine or shower. 
Winter's cold or summer's heat, 



1^0 The Legend Beautiful 

To the convent portals came 
All the blind and halt and lame, 
All the beggars of the street, 
For their daily dole of food 
Dealt them by the brotherhood ; 
And their almoner was he 
Who upon his bended knee, 
Rapt in silent ecstasy 
Of divinest self-surrender, 
Saw the Vision and the Splendor. 
Deep distress and hesitation 
Mingled with his adoration ; 
Should he go or should he stay ? 
Should he leave the poor to wait 
Hungry at the convent gate, 
Till the Vision passed away ? 
Should he slight his radiant guest. 
Slight this visitant celestial. 
For a crowd of ragged, bestial 
Beggars at the convent gate ? 
Would the Vision there remain ? 
Would the Vision come again ? 
Then a voice within his breast 
Whispered, audible and clear 
As if to the outward ear : 
" Do thy duty ; that is best ; 
Leave unto thy Lord the rest ! " 



The Legend Beautiful i^t 

Straightway to his feet he started, 
And with longing look intent 
On the Blessed Vision bent, 
Slowly from his cell departed, 
Slowly on his errand went. 

At the gate the poor were waiting, 
Looking through the iron grating, 
With that terror in the eye 
That is only seen in those 
Who amid their wants and woes 
Hear the sound of doors that close, 
And of feet that pass them by ; 
Grown familiar with disfavor, 
Grown familiar with the savor 
Of the bread by which men die ! 
But to-day, they knew not why. 
Like the gate of Paradise 
Seemed the convent gate to rise. 
Like a sacrament divine 
Seemed to them the bread and wine. 
In his heart the Monk was prajing, 
Thinking of the homeless poor, 
What they suffer and endure ; 
What we see not, what we see ; 
And the inward voice was saying : 



" Whatsoever thing thou doest 



1^2 The Legend Beautiful 

To the least of mine and lowest, 
That thou doest unto me ! " 



Unto me ! but had the Vision 
Come to him in beggar's clothing, 
Come a mendicant imploring, 
Would he then have knelt adoring. 
Or have listened with derision, 
And have turned away with loathing ? 

Thus his conscience put the question. 
Full of troublesome suggestion, 
As at length, with hurried pace, 
Towards his cell he turned his face. 
And beheld the convent bright 
With a supernatural light, 
Like a luminous cloud expanding 
Over floor and wall and ceiling. 

But he paused with awe-struck feeling 
At the threshold of his door, 
For the Vision still was standing 
As he left it there before. 
When the convent bell appalling, 
From its belfry calling, calling. 
Summoned him to feed the poor. 
Through the long hour intervening 




Charles Sumner 75^ 

It had waited his return, 
And he felt his bosom burn, 
Comprehending all the meaning, 
When the Blessed Vision said, 
" Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled ! " 



CHARLES SUMNER. 

ARLANDS upon his grave 
And flowers upon his hearse, 
And to the tender heart and 
brave 
The tribute of this verse. 

His was the troubled life, 
The conflict and the pain, 
The grief, the bitterness of strife, 
The honor without stain. 

Like Winkelried, he took 
Into his manly breast 
The sheaf of hostile spears, and broke 
A path for the oppressed. 

Then from the fatal field 
Upon a nation's heart 



1^4 Charles Sumner 

Borne like a warrior on his shield ! — 
So should the brave depart. 

Death takes us by surprise, 
And stays our hurrying feet ; 
The great design unfinished lies, 
Our lives are incomplete. 

But in the dark unknown 
Perfect their circles seem, 
Even as a bridge's arch of stone 
Is rounded in the stream. 

Alike are life and death. 
When life in death survives. 
And the uninterrupted breath 
Inspires a thousand lives. 

Were a star quenched on high, 
For ages would its light, 
Still travelling downward from the sky, 
Shine on our mortal sight. 

So when a great man dies. 
For years beyond our ken. 
The light he leaves behind him lies 
Upon the paths of men. 




Cadenabbia 755 



CADENABBIA. 

LAKE OF COMO. 

sound of wheels or hoof-beat 

breaks 
The silence of the summer day, 
As by the loveliest of all lakes 
I while the idle hours away. 

I pace the leafy colonnade, 

Where level branches of the plane 

Above me weave a roof of shade 
Impervious to the sun and rain. 

At times a sudden rush of air 
Flutters the lazy leaves overhead. 

And gleams of sunshine toss and flare 
Like torches down the path I tread. 

By Somariva's garden gate 

I make the marble stairs my seat, 

And hear the water, as I wait. 

Lapping the steps beneath my feet. 

The undulation sinks and swells 
Along the stony parapets, 



1^6 Cadenabbia 

And far away the floating bells 
Tinkle upon the fisher^s nets. 

Silent and slow, by tower and town 
The freighted barges come and go, 

Their pendent shadows gliding down 
By town and tower submerged below. 

The hills sweep upward from the shore, 
With villas scattered one by one 

Upon their wooded spurs, and lower 
Bellaggio blazing in the sun. 

And dimly seen, a tangled mass 

Of walls and woods, of light and shade, 

Stands, beckoning up the Stelvio Pass, 
Varenna with its white cascade. 

I ask myself. Is this a dream ? 

Will it all vanish into air ? 
Is there a land of such supreme 

And perfect beauty anywhere ? 

Sweet vision ! Do not fade away : 
Linger, until my heart shall take 

Into itself the summer day, 
And all the beauty of the lake ; 



Amalfi 1^7 

Linger, until upon my brain 

Is stamped an image of the scene ; 

Then fade into the air again, 

And be as if thou hadst not been. 




AMALFI. 

WEET the memory is to me 
Of a land beyond the sea, 
Where the waves and mountains 
meet, 
Where, amid her mulberry-trees 
Sits Amalfi in the heat, 
Bathing ever her white feet 
In the tideless summer seas. 

In the middle of the town. 
From its fountains in the hills, 
Tumbling through the narrow gorge, 
The Canneto rushes down, 
Turns the great wheels of the mills, 
Lifts the hammers of the forge. 

'T is a stairway, not a street, 
That ascends the deep ravine, 



1^8 Amalfi 

Where the torrent leaps between 
Rocky walls that almost meet. 
Toiling up from stair to stair, 
Peasant girls their burdens bear ; 
Sunburnt daughters of the soil, 
Stately figures tall and straight. 
What inexorable fate 
Dooms them to this life of toil ? 

Lord of vineyards and of lands, 
Far above the convent stands. 
On its terraced walk aloof 
Leans a monk with folded hands j 
Placid, satisfied, serene, 
Looking down upon the scene 
Over wall and red-tiled roof ; 
Wondering unto what good end 
All this toil and traffic tend, 
And why all m.en cannot be 
Free from care and free from pain. 
And the sordid love of gain, 
And as indolent as he. 

Where are now the freighted barks 
From the marts of east and west ? 
Where the knights in iron sarks 
Journeying to the Holy Land, 



Amalfi i^g 

Glove of steel upon the hand, 
Cross of crimson on the breast ? 
Where the pomp of camp and court ? 
Where the pilgrims with their prayers ? 
Where the merchants with their wares, 
And their gallant brigantines 
Sailing safely into port 
Chased by corsair Algerines ? 

Vanished like a fleet of cloud, 
Like a passing trumpet-blast, 
Are those splendors of the past, 
And the commerce and the crowd ! 
Fathoms deep beneath the seas 
Lie the ancient wharves and quays, 
Swallowed by the engulfing waves ; 
Silent streets and vacant halls. 
Ruined roofs and towers and walls ; 
Hidden from all mortal eyes 
Deep the sunken city lies : 
Even cities have their graves ! 

This is an enchanted land ! 
Round the headlands far away 
Sweeps the blue Salernian bay 
With its sickle of white sand : 
Further still and furthermost 



i6o Amalfi 

On the dim discovered coast 
Paestum with its ruins lies, 
And its roses all in bloom 
Seem to tinge the fatal skies 
Of that lonely land of doom. 

On his terrace, high in air, 
Nothing doth the good monk care 
For such worldly themes as these. 
From the garden just below 
Little puffs of perfume blow. 
And a sound is in his ears 
Of the murmur of the bees 
In the shining chestnut trees ; 
Nothing else he heeds or hears. 
All the landscape seems to swoon 
In the happy afternoon ; 
Slowly o'er his senses creep 
The encroaching waves of sleep, 
And he sinks as sank the town, 
Unresisting, fathoms down. 
Into caverns cool and deep ! 

Walled about with drifts of snow, 
Hearing the fierce north-wind blow, 
Seeing all the landscape white, 
And the river cased in ice, 



Belisarius i6i 

Comes this memory of delight, 
Comes this vision unto me 
Of a long-lost Paradise 
In the land beyond the sea. 




BELISARIUS. 

AM poor and old and blind ; 

The sun burns me, and the wind 
Blows through the city gate, 
And covers me with dust 
From the wheels of the august 

Justinian the Great 

It was for him I chased 

The Persians o^er wild and waste, 

As General of the East ; 
Night after night I lay 
In their camps of yesterday ; 

Their forage was my feast. 

For him, with sails of red, 
And torches at mast-head, 

Piloting the great fleet, 
I swept the Afric coasts 



1 62 Belisarius 

And scattered the Vandal hosts, 
Like dust in a windy street. 

For him I won again 

The Ausonian realm and reign, 

Rome and Parthenope ; 
And all the land was mine 
From the summits of Apennine 

To the shores of either sea. 

For him, in my feeble age, 
I dared the battle's rage, 

To save Byzantium's state, 
When the tents of Zabergan 
Like snow-drifts overran 

The road to the Golden Gate. 

And for this, for this, behold ! 
Infirm and blind and old, 

With gray, uncovered head. 
Beneath the very arch 
Of my triumphal march, 

I stand and beg my bread ! 

Methinks I still can hear. 
Sounding distinct and near. 
The Vandal monarch's cry. 



The Herons of Elmwood i6^ 

As, captive and disgraced, 
With majestic step he paced, — 
" All, all is Vanity ! " 

Ah ! vainest of all things 
Is the gratitude of kings j 

The plaudits of the crowd 
Are but the clatter of feet 
At midnight in the street, 

Hollow and restless and loud. 

But the bitterest disgrace 
Is to see forever the face 

Of the Monk of Ephesus ! 
The unconquerable will 
This, too, can bear ; — I still 

Am Beli sarins ! 

THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD. 

ARM and still is the summer 
night. 
As here by the river's brink I 
wander ; 
White overhead are the stars, and white 
The glimmering lamps on the hillside 
yonder. 




164 The Herons of Elmwood 

Silent are all the sounds of day ; 

Nothing I hear but the chirp of crick- 
ets, 
And the cry of the herons winging their 
way 
O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood 
thickets. 

Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass 
To your roosts in the haunts of the 
exiled thrushes. 
Sing him the song of the green morass. 
And the tides that water the reeds and 
rushes. 

Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern, 
And the secret that baffles our utmost 
seeking ; 
For only a sound of lament we discern. 
And cannot interpret the words you are 
speaking. 

Sing of the air, and the wild delight 
Of wings that uplift and winds that up- 
hold you, 
The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight 
Through the drift of the floating mists 
that infold you ; 



The Herons of Elmwood i6^ 

Of the landscape lying so far below, 
With its towns and rivers and desert 
places ; 
And the splendor of light above, and the 
glow 
Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces. 

Ask him if songs of the Troubadours, 
Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter, 

Sound in his ears more sweet than yours, 
And if yours are not sweeter and wilder 
and better. 

Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate. 
Where the boughs of the stately elms 
are meeting. 
Some one hath lingered to meditate. 
And send him unseen this friendly 
greeting : 

That many another hath done the same. 
Though not by a sound was the silence 
broken ; 
The surest pledge of a deathless name 
Is the silent homage of thoughts un- 
spoken. 



i66 A Dutch Picture 



A DUTCH PICTURE. 




IMON DANZ has come home 

again, 
ij From cruising about with his 
buccaneers ; 
He has singed the beard of the King of 

Spain, 
And carried away the Dean of Jaen 
And sold him in Algiers. 

In his house by the Maese, with its roof 
of tiles, 

And weathercocks flying aloft in air, 
There are silver tankards of antique styles. 
Plunder of convent and castle, and piles 

Of carpets rich and rare. 

In his tulip-garden there by the town, 

Overlooking the sluggish stream, 
With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown, 
The old sea-captain, hale and brown, 
Walks in a waking dream. 

A smile in his gray mustachio lurks 
Whenever he thinks of the King of 
Spain, 



A Dutch Picture i6y 

And the listed tulips look like Turks, 
And the silent gardener as he works 
Is changed to the Dean of Jaen. 

The windmills on the outermost 

Verge of the landscape in the haze, 
To him are towers on the Spanish coast, 
With whiskered sentinels at their post, 
Though this is the river Maese. 

But when the winter rains begin, 

He sits and smokes by the blazing 
brands, 
And old seafaring men come in. 
Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin, 
And rings upon their hands. 

They sit there in the shadow and shine 
Of the flickering fire of the winter 
night ; 

Figures in color and design 

Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, 
Half darkness and half light. 

And they talk of ventures lost or won, 
And their talk is ever and ever the 
same. 



1 68 A Dutch Picture 

While they drink the red wine of Tarragon, 
From the cellars of some Spanish Don, 
Or convent set on flame. 

Restless at times with heavy strides 

He paces his parlor to and fro ; 
He is like a ship that at anchor rides, 
And swings with the rising and falling 
tides, 
And tugs at her anchor-tow. 

Voices mysterious far and near, 

Sound of the wind and sound of the sea, 
Are calling and whispering in his ear, 
" Simon Danz ! Why stayest thou here .'^ 
Come forth and follow me ! " 

So he thinks he shall take to the sea 
again 
For one more cruise with his bucca- 
neers. 
To singe the beard of the King of Spain, 
And capture another Dean of Jaen 
And sell him in Algiers. 




Vittoria Colonna 169 



VITTORIA COLONNA. 

NCE more, once more, Inarime, 
I see thy purple hills ! — once 
more 
I hear the billows of the bay 

Wash the white pebbles on thy shore. 

High o'er the sea-surge and the sands, 
Like a great galleon wrecked and cast 

Ashore by storms, thy castle stands, 
A mouldering landmark of the Past. 

Upon its terrace-walk I see 
A phantom gliding to and fro ; 

It is Colonna, — it is she 

Who lived and loved so long ago ; — 

Pescara's beautiful young wife, 
The type of perfect womanhood. 

Whose life was love, the life of life. 

That time and change and death with- 
stood ; — 

For death, that breaks the marriage band 
In others, only closer pressed 



lyo Vittoria Colonna 

The wedding-ring upon her hand 

And closer locked and barred her 
breast. 

She knew the life-long martyrdom, 
The weariness, the endless pain 

Of waiting for some one to come 
Who nevermore would come again. 

The shadows of the chestnut trees, 
The odor of the orange blooms, 

The song of birds, and, more than these, 
The silence of deserted rooms ; 

The respiration of the sea, 

The soft caresses of the air. 
All things in nature seemed to be 

But ministers of her despair ; 

Till the overburdened heart, so long 
Imprisoned in itself, found vent 

And voice in one impassioned song 
Of inconsolable lament. 

Then as the sun, though hidden from 
sight, 
Transmutes to gold the leaden mist, 



The Three Kings iji 

Her life was interfused with light 

From realms that, though unseen, exist. 

Inarime ! Inarime ! 

Thy castle on the crags above 
In dust shall crumble and decay, 

But not the memory of her love. 




THE THREE KINGS. 

HREE Kings came riding from 
far away, 
Melchior and Caspar and Bal- 
tasar ; 
Three Wise Men out of the East were they, 
And they travelled by night and they slept 
by day, 
For their guide was a beautiful, wonder- 
ful star. 

The star was so beautiful, large, and clear, 
That all the other stars of the sky 

Became a white mist in the atmosphere ; 

And by this they knew that the coming 
was near 
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy. 



172 The Three Kings 

Three caskets they bore on their saddle- 
bows, 
Three caskets of gold with golden keys ; 
Their robes were of crimson silk with 

rows 
Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows, 
Their turbans like blossoming almond- 
trees. 

And so the Three Kings rode into the 
West, 
Through the dusk of night, over hill 
and dell. 

And sometimes they nodded with beard 
on breast. 

And sometimes talked, as they paused to 
rest. 
With the people they met at some way- 
side well. 

" Of the child that is born," said Baltasar, 
'^ Good people, I pray you, tell us the 
news ; 
For we in the East have seen his star. 
And have ridden fast, and have ridden far, 
To find and worship the King of the 
Jews." 



The Three Kings ij^ 

And the people answered, "You ask in 

vain ; 
We know of no king but Herod the 

Great ! " 
They thought the Wise Men were men 

insane, 
As they spurred their horses across the 

plain, 
Like riders in haste, and who cannot 

wait. 

And when they came to Jerusalem, 

Herod the Great, who had heard this 
thing. 
Sent for the Wise Men and questioned 

them ; 
And said, " Go down unto Bethlehem, 
And bring me tidings of this new king." 

So they rode away; and the star stood 
still. 
The only one in the gray of morn ; 
Yes, it stopped, — it stood still of its own 

free will, 
Right over Bethlehem on the hill. 

The city of David, where Christ was 
born. 



i'/4 The Three Kings 

And the Three Kings rode through the 
gate and the guard, 
Through the silent street, till their horses 
turned 
And neighed as they entered the great inn- 
yard ; 
But the windows were closed, and the doors 
were barred. 
And only a light in the stable burned. 

And cradled there in the scented hay. 
In the air made sweet by the breath of 
kine. 
The little child in the manger lay, 
The child, that would be king one day 
Of a kingdom not human but divine. 

His mother Mary of Nazareth 

Sat watching beside his place of rest, 
Watching the even flow of his breath, 
For the joy of life and the terror of death 
Were mingled together in her breast. 

They laid their offerings at his feet : 

The gold was their tribute to a King, 
The frankincense, with its odor sweet. 
Was for the Priest, the Paraclete, 
The myrrh for the body's burying. 



Song 775 

And the mother wondered and bowed her 
head, 
And sat as still as a statue of stone ; 
Her heart was troubled yet comforted, 
Remembering what the Angel had said 
Of an endless reign and of David's 
throne. 

Then the Kings rode out of the city gate, 
With a clatter of hoofs in proud array ; 
But they went not back to Herod the 

Great, 
For they knew his malice and feared his 
hate. 
And returned to their homes by another 
way. 

SONG. 

ijTAY, stay at home, my heart, and 
rest ; 
Home-keeping hearts are hap- 
piest, 
For those that wander they know not 
where 




176 Song from the Portuguese 

Are full of trouble and full of care j 
To stay at home is best. 

Weary and homesick and distressed, 
They wander east, they wander west, 
And are baffled and beaten and blown 

about 
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt ; 
To stay at home is best. 

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest ; 
The bird is safest in its nest ; 
O'er all that flutter their wings and fly 
A hawk is hovering in the sky ; 
To stay at home is best. 

% 

SONG FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 

' F thou art sleeping, maiden, 
Awake, and open thy door ; 
'T is the break of day, and we 
must away. 
O'er meadow, and mount, and moor. 

Wait not to find thy slippers. 
But come with thy naked feet : 




Palingenesis lyy 

We shall have to pass through the dewy 
grass, 
And waters wide and fleet. 




PALINGENESIS. 

LAY upon the headland-height, 

and listened 
To the incessant sobbing of the 
sea 
In caverns under me, 
And watched the waves, that tossed and 

fled and glistened, 
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst 
Melted away in mist. 

Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I 

started ; 
For round about me all the sunny capes 

Seemed peopled with the shapes 
Of those whom I had known in days de- 
parted. 
Apparelled in the loveHness which gleams 
On faces seen in dreams. 



iy8 Palingenesis 

A moment only, and the light and glory 
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore 

Stood lonely as before ; 
And the wild-roses of the promontory 
Around me shuddered in the wind, and 
shed 

Their petals of pale red. 

There was an old belief that in the em- 
bers 
Of all things their primordial form exists, 

And cunning alchemists 
Could re-create the rose with all its mem- 
bers 
From its own ashes, but without the bloom, 
Without the lost perfume. 

Ah me ! what wonder-working, occult 

science 
Can from the ashes in our hearts once 
more 
The rose of youth restore ? 
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance 
To time and change, and for a single hour 
Renew this phantom-flower ? 

"Oh, give me back," I cried, "the van- 
ished splendors, 



Palingenesis lyg 

The breath of morn, and the exultant 
strife, 
When the swift stream of life 
Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and sur- 
renders 
The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap 
Into the unknown deep ! " 

And the sea answered, with a lamentation. 
Like some old prophet wailing, and it 
said, 
*' Alas ! thy youth is dead ! 
It breathes no more, its heart has no pul- 
sation ; 
In the dark places with the dead of old 
It lies forever cold ! ^^ 

Then said I, " From its consecrated cere- 
ments 
I will not drag this sacred dust again, 

Only to give me pain ; 
But, still remembering all the lost endear- 
ments. 
Go on my way, like one who looks before, 
And turns to weep no more." 

Into what land of harvests, what planta- 
tions 



i8o Palingenesis 

Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow 

Of sunsets burning low ; 
Beneath what midnight skies, whose con- 
stellations 
Light up the spacious avenues between 

This world and the unseen ! 

Amid what friendly greetings and caresses, 
What households, though not alien, yet 
not mine. 
What bowers of rest divine ; 
To what temptations in lone wildernesses, 
What famine of the heart, what pain and 
loss, 
The bearing of what cross ! 

I do not know ; nor will I vainly question 
Those pages of the mystic book which 
hold 
The story still untold, 
But without rash conjecture or suggestion 
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good 
heed, 
Until '' The End " I read. 




Hawthorne i8i 

HAWTHORNE. 
May 23, 1864. 

OW beautiful it was, that one 
bright day 
In the long week of rain ! 
Though all its splendor could not chase 
away 
The omnipresent pain. 

The lovely town was white with apple- 
blooms, 

And the great elms overhead 
Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms 

Shot through with golden thread. 

Across the meadows, by the gray old 
manse, 

The historic river flowed : 
I was as one who wanders in a trance, 

Unconscious of his road. 

The faces of familiar friends seemed 
strange ; 
Their voices I could hear, 



i82 Hawthorne 

And yet the words they uttered seemed 
to change 
Their meaning to my ear. 

For the one face I looked for was not 
there, 

The one low voice was mute ; 
Only an unseen presence filled the air, 

And baffled my pursuit. 

Now I look back, and meadow, manse, 
and stream 

Dimly my thought defines ; 
I only see — a dream within a dream — 

The hill-top hearsed with pines. 

I only hear above his place of rest 

Their tender undertone, 
The infinite longings of a troubled breast, 

The voice so like his own. 

There in seclusion and remote from men 

The wizard hand lies cold. 
Which at its topmost speed let fall the 
pen. 

And left the tale half told. 



The Wind over the Chimney i8^ 

Ah ! who shall lift that wand of magic 
power, 

And the lost clew regain ? 
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower 

Unfinished must remain ! 




THE WIND OVER THE CHIMNEY. 

EE, the fire is sinking low, 
Dusky red the embers glow, 
While above them still I cower, 
While a moment more I linger, 
Though the clock, with lifted finger, 
Points beyond the midnight hour. 

Sings the blackened log a tune 
Learned in some forgotten June 

From a school-boy at his play, 
When they both were young together. 
Heart of youth and summer weather 

Making all their holiday. 

And the night-wind rising, hark ! 
How above there in the dark. 
In the midnight and the snow. 



184 The Wind over the Chimney 

Ever wilder, fiercer, grander, 
Like the trumpets of Iskander, 
All the noisy chimneys blow ! 

Every quivering tongue of flame 
Seems to murmur some great name, 

Seems to say to me, " Aspire ! " 
But the night-wind answers, " Hollow 
Are the visions that you follow. 

Into darkness sinks your fire ! " 

Then the flicker of the blaze 
Gleams on volumes of old days, 

Written by masters of the art. 
Loud through whose majestic pages 
Rolls the melody of ages, 

Throb the harp-strings of the heart. 

And again the tongues of flame 
Start exulting and exclaim : 

" These are prophets, bards, and seers ; 
In the horoscope of nations, 
Like ascendant constellations. 

They control the coming years." 

But the night-wind cries : " Despair ! 
Those who walk with feet of air 



The Wind over the Chimney i8^ 

Leave no long-enduring marks ; 
At God's forges incandescent 
Mighty hammers beat incessant, 

These are but the flying sparks. 

" Dust are all the hands that wrought ; 
Books are sepulchres of thought ; 

The dead laurels of the dead 
Rustle for a moment only, 
Like the withered leaves in lonely 
Churchyards at some passing tread." 

Suddenly the flame sinks down ; 
Sink the rumors of renown ; 

And alone the night-wind drear 
Clamors louder, wilder, vaguer, — 
" 'T is the brand of Meleager 

Dying on the hearth-stone here ! " 

And I answer, — " Though it be, 
Why should that discomfort me ? 

No endeavor is in vain ; 
Its reward is in the doing, 
And the rapture of pursuing 

Is the prize the vanquished gain." 



i86 The Bells of Lynn 



THE BELLS OF LYNN. 

HEARD AT NAHANT. 




CURFEW of the setting sun ! 

O Bells of Lynn ! 
O requiem of the dying day ! 

O Bells of Lynn ! 



From the dark belfries of yon cloud- 
cathedral wafted, 

Your sounds aerial seem to float, O Bells 
of Lynn ! 

Borne on the evening wind across the 

crimson twilight, 
O'er land and sea they rise and fall, O 

Bells of Lynn ! 

The fisherman in his boat, far out beyond 

the headland, 
Listens, and leisurely rows ashore, O Bells 

of Lynn ! 

Over the shining sands the wandering 

cattle homeward 
Follow each other at your call, O Bells of 

Lynn !* 



The Bells of Lynn i8y 

The distant lighthouse hears, and with his 

flaming signal 
Answers you, passing the watchword on, 

O Bells of Lynn ! 

And down the darkening coast run the 

tumultuous surges. 
And clap their hands, and shout to you, O 

Bells of Lynn ! 

Till from the shuddering sea, with your 

wild incantations, 
Ye summon up the spectral moon, O Bells 

of Lynn ! 

And startled at the sight, like the weird 

woman of Endor, 
Ye cry aloud, and then are still, O Bells of 

Lynn ! 



^ 




1 88 The Hanging of the Crane 



THE HANGING OF THE CRANE. 
I. 

HE lights are out, and gone are 

all the guests 
That thronging came with merri- 
ment and jests 
To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane 
In the new house, — into the night are 

gone j 
But still the fire upon the hearth burns on, 
And I alone remain. 

O fortunate, O happy day. 
When a new household finds its place 
Among the myriad homes of earth, 
Like a new star just sprung to birth, 
And rolled on its harmonious way 
Into the boundless realms of space ! 

So said the guests in speech and song. 
As in the chimney, burning bright. 
We hung the iron crane to-night. 
And merry was the feast and long. 



The Hanging of the Crane i8g 

II. 

And now I sit and muse on what may be, 
And in my vision see, or seem to see. 
Through floating vapors interfused with 
light, 
Shapes indeterminate, that gleam and 

fade. 
As shadows passing into deeper shade 
Sink and elude the sight. 

For two alone, there in the hall. 

Is spread the table round and small ; 

Upon the polished silver shine 

The evening lamps, but, more divine, 

The light of love shines over all ; 

Of love, that says not mine and thine. 

But ours, for ours is thine and mine. 

They want no guests, to come between 
Their tender glances like a screen, 
And tell them tales of land and sea, 
And whatsoever may betide 
The great, forgotten world outside ; 
They want no guests ; they needs must 

be 
Each other's own best company. 



I go The Hanging of the Crane 

III. 

The picture fades ; as at a village fair 
A showman's views, dissolving into air, 
Again appear transfigured on the 
screen, 
So in my fancy this ; and now once more, 
In part transfigured, through the open 
door 
Appears the selfsame scene. 

Seated, I see the two again. 
But not alone ; they entertain 
A little angel unaware. 
With face as round as is the moon, 
A royal guest with flaxen hair. 
Who, throned upon his lofty chair. 
Drums on the table with his spoon. 
Then drops it careless on the floor, 
To grasp at things unseen before. 

Are these celestial manners ? these 
The ways that win, the arts that please ? 
Ah yes ; consider well the guest. 
And whatsoe'er he does seems best ; 
He ruleth by the right divine 
Of helplessness, so lately born 



The Hanging of the Crane igi 

In purple chambers of the morn, 
As sovereign over thee and thine. 
He speaketh not ; and yet there lies 
A conversation in his eyes ; 
The golden silence of the Greek, 
The gravest wisdom of the wise, 
Not spoken in language, but in looks 
More legible than printed books, 
As if he could but would not speak. 
And now, O monarch absolute. 
Thy power is put to proof ; for, lo ! 
Resistless, fathomless, and slow. 
The nurse comes rustling like the sea, 
And pushes back thy chair and thee, 
And so good night to King Canute. 



IV. 

As one who walking in a forest sees 
A lovely landscape through the parted 
trees, 
Then sees it not, for boughs that inter- 
vene ; 
Or as we see the moon sometimes revealed 
Through drifting clouds, and then again 
concealed. 
So I behold the scene. 



/92 The Hanging of the Crane 

There are two guests at table now ; 
The king, deposed and older grown, 
No longer occupies the throne, — 
The crown is on his sister's brow; 
A Princess from the Fairy Isles, 
The very pattern girl of girls. 
All covered and embowered in curls. 
Rose-tinted from the Isle of Flowers, 
And sailing with soft, silken sails 
From far-off Dreamland into ours. 
Above their bowls with rims of blue 
Four azure eyes of deeper hue 
Are looking, dreamy with delight ; 
Limpid as planets that emerge 
Above the ocean's rounded verge. 
Soft-shining through the summer night. 
Steadfast they gaze, yet nothing see 
Beyond the horizon of their bowls ; 
Nor care they for the world that rolls 
With all its freight of troubled souls 
Into the days that are to be. 

V. 

Again the tossing boughs shut out the 

scene, 
Again the drifting vapors intervene, 
And the moon's pallid disk is hidden 
quite ; 



The Hanging of the Crane ig^ 

And now I see the table wider grown, 
As round a pebble into water thrown 
Dilates a ring of light. 

I see the table wider grown, 
I see it garlanded with guests, 
As if fair Ariadne's Crown 
Out of the sky had fallen down ; 
Maidens, within whose tender breasts 
A thousand restless hopes and fears, 
Forth reaching to the coming years. 
Flutter awhile, then quiet lie, 
Like timid birds that fain would fly. 
But do not dare to leave their nests ; — 
And youths, who in their strength elate 
Challenge the van and front of fate, 
Eager as champions to be 
In the divine knight-errantry 
Of youth, that travels sea and land 
Seeking adventures, or pursues. 
Through cities, and through solitudes 
Frequented by the lyric Muse, 
The phantom with the beckoning hand. 
That still allures and still eludes. 
O sweet illusions of the brain ! 
O sudden thrills of fire and frost ! 
The world is bright while ye remain, 
And dark and dead when ye are lost ! 



ig4 T*^^ Hanging of the Crane 

VI. 

The meadow-brook, that seemeth to stand 

still, 
Quickens its current as it nears the mill ; 
And so the stream of Time that lingereth 
In level places, and so dull appears. 
Runs with a swifter current as it nears 
The gloomy mills of Death, 

And now, like the magician's scroll, 
That in the owner's keeping shrinks 
With every wish he speaks or thinks. 
Till the last wish consumes the w^hole, 
The table dwindles, and again 
I see the two alone remain. 
The crown of stars is broken in parts ; 
Its jewels, brighter than the day, 
Have one by one been stolen away 
To shine in other homes and hearts. 
One is a wanderer now afar 
In Ceylon or in Zanzibar, 
Or sunny regions of Cathay ; 
And one is in the boisterous camp 
Mid clink of arms and horses' tramp, 
And battle's terrible array. 
I see the patient mother read, 



The Hanging of the Crane ig^ 

With aching heart, of wrecks that float 

Disabled on those seas remote, 

Or of some great heroic deed 

On battle-fields, where thousands bleed 

To lift one hero into fame. 

Anxious she bends her graceful head 

Above these chronicles of pain, 

And trembles with a secret dread 

Lest there among the drowned or slain 

She find the one beloved name. 

VII. 

After a day of cloud and wind and rain 
Sometimes the setting sun breaks out 
again, 
And, touching all the darksome woods 
with light, 
Smiles on the fields, until they laugh and 

sing, 
Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring 
Drops down into the night. 

What see I now 1 The night is fair. 
The storm of grief, the clouds of care, 
The wind, the rain, have passed away ; 
The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright, 
The house is full of life and light ; 



196 The Hanging of the Crane 

It is the Golden Wedding day. 

The guests come thronging in once more, 

Quick footsteps sound along the floor, 

The trooping children crowd the stair, 

And in and out and everywhere 

Flashes along the corridor 

The sunshine of their golden hair. 

On the round table in the hall 

Another Ariadne's Crown 

Out of the sky hath fallen down ; 

More than one Monarch of the Moon 

Is drumming with his silver spoon ; 

The light of love shines over all. 

O fortunate, O happy day ! 
The people sing, the people say. 
The ancient bridegroom and the bride, 
Smiling contented and serene 
Upon the blithe, bewildering scene, 
Behold, well pleased, on every side 
Their forms and features multiplied, 
As the reflection of a light 
Between two burnished mirrors gleams. 
Or lamps upon a bridge at night 
Stretch on and on before the sight, 
Till the long vista endless seems. 



SONNETS. 




MEZZO CAMMIN. 
[Written 25 August, 1842.] 

ALF of my life is gone, and I have 

let 
The years slip from me and 
have not fulfilled 
The aspiration of my youth, to build 
Some tower of song with lofty parapet. 
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret 
Of restless passions that would not be 

stilled, 
But sorrow, and a care that almost 

killed, 
Kept me from what I may accomplish 
yet ; 
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the 
Past 
Lying beneath me with its sounds and 
sights^ — 



/pS The Evening Star 

A city in the twilight dim and vast, 
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleam- 
ing lights, — 

And hear above me on the autumnal 
blast 

The cataract of Death far thundering 
from the heights. 




THE EVENING STAR. 

O ! in the painted oriel of the 
West, 
Whose panes the sunken sun 
incarnadines, 
Like a fair lady at her casement, shines 
The evening star, the star of love and 
rest ! 
And then anon she doth herself divest 
Of all her radiant garments, and re- 
clines 
Behind the sombre screen of yonder 

pines. 
With slumber and soft dreams of love 
oppressed. 
my beloved, my sweet Hesperus ! 



The Cross of Snow igg 

My morning and my evening star of 

love! 
My best and gentlest lady ! even thus, 
As that fair planet in the sky above, 
Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night. 
And from thy darkened window fades 
the light. 




THE CROSS OF SNOV^. 

N the long, sleepless watches of 
the night, 
A gentle face — the face of one 
long dead — 
Looks at me from the wall, where round 

its head 
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale 
light 
Here in this room she died ; and soul more 
white 
Never through martyrdom of fire was 

led 
To its repose ; nor can in books be 
read 



200 To-Morrow 

The legend of a life more benedight. 
There is a mountain in the distant West 
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines 
Displays a cross of snow upon its side. 
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast 
These eighteen years, through all the 

changing scenes 
And seasons, changeless since the day 
she died. 




TO-MORROW. 

late at night, and in the 
realm of sleep 
My little lambs are folded like 
the flocks ; 
From room to room I hear the wakeful 

clocks 
Challenge the passing hour, like guards 
that keep 
Their solitary watch on tower and steep ; 
Far off I hear the crowing of the cocks, 
And through the opening door that time 
unlocks 



The Broken Oar 201 

Feel the fresh breathing of To-morrow 
creep. 
To-morrow! the mysterious, unknown 
guest, 

Who cries to me : " Remember Barme- 
cide, 

And tremble to be happy with the rest." 
And 1 make answer : " I am satisfied ; 

I dare not ask ; I know not what is 
best; 

God hath already said what shall be- 
tide." 



% 



THE BROKEN OAR. 

N C E upon Iceland^s solitary 
strand 
A poet wandered with his book 
and pen, 
Seeking some final word, some sweet 

Amen, 
Wherewith to close the volume in his 
hand. 
The billows rolled and plunged upon the 
sand. 




202 Divina Commedia 

The circling sea-gulls swept beyond his 

ken, 
And from the parting cloud-rack now 

and then 
Flashed the red sunset over sea and 

land. 
Then by the billows at his feet was tossed 
A broken oar ; and carved thereon he 

read : 
"Oft was I weary, when I toiled at 

thee " ; 
And, like a man who findeth what was 

lost. 
He wrote the words, then lifted up his 

head, 
And flung his useless pen into the sea. 

DIVINA COMMEDIA. 
I. 

FT have I seen at some cathedral 
door 




A laborer, pausing in the dust 
and heat, 
Lay down his burden, and with reverent 
feet 



Divina Commedia 20^ 

Enter, and cross himself, and on the 
floor 
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er ; 
Far off the noises of the world retreat ; 
The loud vociferations of the street 
Become an undistinguishable roar. 
So, as I enter here from day to day, 
And leave my burden at this minster 

gate, 
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to 
pray, 
The tumult of the time disconsolate 
To inarticulate murmurs dies away, 
While the eternal ages watch and wait. 



II. 

How strange the sculptures that adorn 

these towers ! 
This crowd of statues, in whose folded 

sleeves 
Birds build their nests ; while canopied 

with leaves 
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised 

bowers, 
And the vast minster seems a cross of 

flowers ! 



204 Divina Commedia 

But fiends and dragons on the gar- 
goyled eaves 

Watch the dead Christ between the liv- 
ing thieves, 

And, underneath, the traitor Judas low- 
ers ! 
Ah ! from what agonies of heart and 
brain. 

What exultations trampling on despair, 

What tenderness, what tears, what hate 
of wrong, 
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, 

Uprose this poem of the earth and air, 

This mediaeval miracle of song ! 



III. 

I enter, and I see thee in the gloom 
Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine ! 
And strive to make my steps keep pace 

with thine. 
The air is filled with some unknown 
perfume ; 
The congregation of the dead make room 
For thee to pass ; the votive tapers 

shine ; 
Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves 
of pine 



Divina Commedia 205 

The hovering echoes fly from tomb to 
tomb. 
From the confessionals I hear arise 

Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies, 

And lamentations from the crypts be- 
low; 
And then a voice celestial that begins 

With the pathetic words, *^ Although 
your sins 

As scarlet be," and ends with " as the 
snow." 

IV. 

With snow-white veil and garments as of 
flame, 

She stands before thee, who so long ago 

Filled thy young heart with passion and 
the woe 

From which thy song and all its splen- 
dors came ; 
And while with stern rebuke she speaks 
thy name, 

The ice about thy heart melts as the 
snow 

On mountain heights, and in swift over- 
flow 

Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of 
shame. 



2o6 Divina Commedia 

Thou makest full confession ; and a gleam, 

As of the dawn on some dark forest 
cast, 

Seems on thy lifted forehead to in- 
crease ; 
Lethe and Eunoe — the remembered 
dream 

And the forgotten sorrow — bring at 
last 

That perfect pardon which is perfect 
peace. 



I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze 
With forms of Saints and holy men who 

died. 
Here martyred and hereafter glorified ; 
And the great Rose upon its leaves dis- 
plays 
Christ's Triumph, and the angelic rounde- 
lays. 
With splendor upon splendor multi- 
plied ; 
And Beatrice again at Dante's side 
No more rebukes, but smiles her words 
of praise. 



Divina Commedia 2oy 

And then the organ sounds, and unseen 
choirs 
Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and 

love 
And benedictions of the Holy Ghost ; 
And the melodious bells among the spires 
O'er all the house-tops and through 

heaven above 
Proclaim the elevation of the Host ! 



VI. 

O star of morning and of liberty ! 

O bringer of the light, whose splendor 

shines 
Above the darkness of the Apennines, 
Forerunner of the day that is to be ! 
The voices of the city and the sea, 

The voices of the mountains and the 

pines. 
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines 
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy ! 
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the 
heights, 
Through all the nations, and a sound is 

heard 
As of a mighty wind, and men devout, 



2o8 Seven Sonnets and a Cani{one 

Strangers of Rome, and the new prose- 
lytes, 

In their own language hear thy won- 
drous word. 

And many are amazed and many doubt. 



\ 



SEVEN SONNETS AND A CANZONE. 

[from MICHAEL ANGELO.] 

I. 

THE ARTIST. 

OTHING the greatest artist can 
conceive 
That every marble block doth 
not confine 
Within itself ; and only its design 
The hand that follows intellect can 
achieve. 
The ill I flee, the good that I believe. 
In thee, fair lady, lofty and divine, 
Thus hidden lie ; and so that death be 
mine. 




Seven Sonnets and a Canzone 209 

Art, of desired success, doth me be- 
reave. 
Love is not guilty, then, nor thy fair face, 

Nor fortune, cruelty, nor great disdain, 

Of my disgrace, nor chance nor destiny, 
If in thy heart both death and love find 
place 

At the same time, and if my humble 
brain. 

Burning, can nothing draw but death 
from thee. 



II. 

FIRE. 

Not without fire can any workman mould 
The iron to his preconceived design. 
Nor can the artist without fire refine 
And purify from all its dross the gold ; 

Nor can revive the phoenix, we are told, 
Except by fire. Hence if such death be 

mine 
I hope to rise again with the divine, 
Whom death augments, and time cannot 
make old. 



210 Seven Sonnets and a Canzone 

O sweet, sweet death ! O fortunate fire 
that burns 
Within me still to renovate my days, 
Though I am almost numbered with 
the dead ! 
If by its nature unto heaven returns 
This element, me, kindled in its blaze, 
Will it bear upward when my life is 
fled. 



III. 

YOUTH AND AGE. 

Oh give me back the days when loose 

and free 
To my blind passion were the curb and 

rein. 
Oh give me back the angelic face again, 
With which all virtue buried seems to 

be! 
Oh give my panting footsteps back to me. 
That are in age so slow and fraught 

with pain. 
And fire and moisture in the heart and 

brain, 



Seven Sonnets and a Canzone 211 

If thou wouldst have me burn and 

weep for thee ! 
If it be true thou Hvest alone, Amor, 
On the sweet-bitter tears of human 

hearts, 
In an old man thou canst not wake 

desire ; 
Souls that have almost reached the other 

shore 
Of a diviner love should feel the darts, 
And be as tinder to a holier fire. 



IV. 

OLD AGE. 

The course of my long life hath reached 
at last, 
In fragile bark o'er a tempestuous sea, 
The common harbor, where must ren- 
dered be 
Account of all the actions of the past. 
The impassioned phantasy, that, vague 
and vast, 
Made art an idol and a king to me, 
Was an illusion, and but vanity 



212 Seven Sonnets and a Can:(one 

Were the desires that lured me and 

harassed. 
The dreams of love, that were so sweet 

of yore, 
What are they now, when two deaths 

may be mine, — 
One sure, and one forecasting its 

alarms ? 
Painting and sculpture satisfy no more 
The soul now turning to the Love 

Divine, 
That oped, to embrace us, on the cross 

its arms. 



V. 

TO VITTORIA COLONNA. 

Lady, how can it chance — yet this we see 
In long experience — that will longer 

last 
A living image carved from quarries 

vast 
Than its own maker, who dies pres- 
ently ? 
Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be, 



Seven Sonnets and a Canzone 21^ 

And even Nature is by Art surpassed ; 
This know I, who to Art have given 

the past, 
But see that Time is breaking faith with 

me. 
Perhaps on both of us long life can I 
Either in color or in stone bestow, 
By now portraying each in look and 

mien ; 
So that a thousand years after we die, 
How fair thou wast, and I how full of 

woe. 
And wherefore I so loved thee, may be 

seen. 



VI. 
TO VITTORIA COLONNA. 

When the prime mover of my many sighs 
Heaven took through death from out 

her earthly place. 
Nature, that never made so fair a face, 
Remained ashamed, and tears were in 
all eyes. 
O fate, unheeding my impassioned cries ! 



214 Seven Sonnets and a Canzone 

O hopes fallacious ! O thou spirit of 

grace, 
Where art thou now ? Earth holds in 

its embrace 
Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the 

skies. 
Vainly did cruel death attempt to stay 
The rumor of thy virtuous renown, 
That Lethe's waters could not wash 

away! 
A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken 

thee down, 
Speak of thee, nor to thee could Heaven 

convey. 
Except through death, a refuge and a 

crown. 



VII. 

DANTE. 

What should be said of him cannot be 
said; 

By too great splendor is his name at- 
tended ; 

To blame is easier those who him 
offended. 



Seven Sonnets and a Can^^pne 21^ 

Than reach the faintest glory round 

him shed. 
This man descended to the doomed and 

dead 
For our instruction ; then to God as- 
cended ; 
Heaven opened wide to him its portals 

splendid, 
Who from his country's, closed against 

him, fled. 
Ungrateful land ! To its own prejudice 
Nurse of his fortunes ; and this showeth 

well, 
That the most perfect most of grief 

shall see. 
Among a thousand proofs let one suffice. 
That as his exile hath no parallel, 
Ne'er walked the earth a greater man 

than he. 



VIII. 

CANZONE. 

Ah me ! ah me ! when thinking of the 
years. 
The vanished years, alas, I do not find 



\ 



21 6 Three Friends of Mine 

Among them all one day that was my 
own! 

Fallacious hopes, desires of the unknown, 
Lamenting, loving, burning, and in 

tears, 
(For human passions all have stirred 
my mind,) 

Have held me, now I feel and know, con- 
fined 

Both from the true and good still far 
away. 

I perish day by day ; 

The sunshine fails, the shadows grow 
more dreary. 

And I am near to fall, infirm and weary. 

THREE FRIENDS OF MINE. 
I. 

HEN I remember them, those 

friends of mine. 
Who are no longer here, the 
noble three. 
Who half my life were more than friends 
to me, 




Three Friends of Mine 21 y 

And whose discourse was like a gener- 
ous wine, 
I most of all remember the divine 

Something, that shone in them, and 
made us see 

The archetypal man, and what might be 

The amplitude of Nature's first design. 
In vain I stretch my hands to clasp their 
hands ; 

I cannot find them. Nothing now is 
left 

But a majestic memory. They mean- 
while 
Wander together in Elysian lands, 

Perchance remembering me, who am 
bereft 

Of their dear presence, and, remember- 
ing, smile. 

II. 

In Attica thy birthplace should have been, 
Or the Ionian Isles, or where the seas 
Encircle in their arms the Cyclades, 
So v/holly Greek wast thou in thy serene 

And childlike joy of life, O Philhellene ! 
Around thee would have swarmed the 
Attic bees ; 



21 8 Three Friends of Mine 

Homer had been thy friend, or Socrates, 
And Plato welcomed thee to his de- 
mesne. 
For thee old legends breathed historic 

breath ; 
Thou sawest Poseidon in the purple 

sea, 
And in the sunset Jason's fleece of 

gold! 
Oh, what hadst thou to do with cruel 

Death, 
Who wast so full of life, or Death with 

thee. 
That thou shouldst die before thou 

hadst grown old ! 

III. 

I stand again on the familiar shore. 

And hear the waves of the distracted 

sea 
Piteously calling and lamenting thee, 
And waiting restless at thy cottage 

door. 
The rocks, the sea-weed on the ocean 

floor, 
The willows in the meadow, and the 

free 



Three Friends of Mine 21 g 

Wild winds of the Atlantic welcome 

me ; 
Then why shouldst thou be dead, and 

come no more ? 
Ah, why shouldst thou be dead, when 

common men 
Are busy with their trivial affairs, 
Having and holding ? Why, when thou 

hadst read 
Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then 
Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears. 
Why art thou silent? Why shouldst 

thou be dead ? 

IV. 

River, that stealest with such silent pace 

Around the City of the Dead, where 
lies 

A friend who bore thy name, and whom 
these eyes 

Shall see no more in his accustomed 
place. 
Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace. 

And say good night, for now the west- 
ern skies 

Are red with sunset, and gray mists 
arise 



220 Three Friends of Mine 

Like damps that gather on a dead 

man's face. 
Good night ! good night ! as we so oft 

have said 
Beneath this roof at midnight, in the 

days 
That are no more, and shall no more 

return. 
Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone 

to bed ; 
I stay a little longer, as one stays 
To cover up the embers that still burn, 

V. 

The doors are all wide open ; at the gate 
The blossomed lilacs counterfeit a 

blaze, 
And seem to warm the air ; a dreamy 

haze 
Hangs o'er the Brighton meadows like 

a fate, 
And on their margin, with sea-tides elate, 
The flooded Charles, as in the happier 

days, 
Writes the last letter of his name, and 

stays 
His restless steps, as if compelled to 

wait. 



Chaucer 221 

I also wait ; but they will come no more, 
Those friends of mine, whose presence 

satisfied 
The thirst and hunger of my heart. 
Ah me! 
They have forgotten the pathway to my 
door! 
Something is gone from nature since 

they died, 
And summer is not summer, nor can be. 




CHAUCER. 

N old man in a lodge within a 
park; 
The chamber walls depicted all 
around 
With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, 

and hound, 
And the hurt deer. He listeneth to 
the lark, 
Whose song comes with the sunshine 
through the dark 
Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound ; 
He listeneth and he laugheth at the 
sound. 



222 Shakespeare 

Then writeth in a book like any clerk. 

He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote 
The Canterbury Tales, and his old age 
Made beautiful with song ; and as I read 

I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note 
Of lark and linnet, and from every page 
Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery 
mead. 



SHAKESPEARE. 

VISION as of crowded city streets, 
With human life in endless over- 
flow ; 
Thunder of thoroughfares ; trumpets 

that blow 
To battle ; clamor, in obscure retreats, 
Of sailors landed from their anchored 
fleets ; 
Tolling of bells in turrets, and below 
Voices of children, and bright flowers 

that throw 
O'er garden-walls their intermingled 
sweets ! 
This vision comes to me when I unfold 
The volume of the Poet paramount, 




Milton 22^ 

Whom all the Muses loved, not one 

alone ; — 
Into his hands they put the lyre of gold, 
And, crowned with sacred laurel at 

their fount, 
Placed him as Musagetes on their 

throne. 



MILTON. 

PACE the sounding sea-beach 

and behold 
How the voluminous billows roll 
and run, 
Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun 
Shines through their sheeted emerald 
far unrolled. 
And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold 
by fold 
All its loose-flowing garments into one, 
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the 

dun 
Pale reach of sands, and changes them 
to gold. 
So in majestic cadence rise and fall 
The mighty undulations of thy song, 
O sightless bard, England's Ma^onides ! 





224 Keats 

And ever and anon, high over all 

Uplifted, a ninth wave, superb and 

strong. 
Floods all the soul with its melodious 

seas. 



KEATS. 

HE young Endymion sleeps En- 
dymion's sleep ; 
The shepherd-boy whose tale 
was left half told ! 
The solemn grove uplifts its shield of 

gold 
To the red rising moon, and loud and 
deep 
The nightingale is singing from the steep ; 
It is midsummer, but the air is cold ; 
Can it be death ? Alas, beside the fold 
A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near 
his sheep. 
Lo ! in the moonlight gleams a marble 
white. 
On which I read : " Here lieth one 

whose name 
Was writ in water." And was this the 
meed 



The Tides 22^ 

Of his sweet singing? Rather let me 

write : 
"The smoking flax before it burst to 

flame 
Was quenched by death, and broken 

the bruised reed." 




THE TIDES. 

SAW the long line of the vacant 
shore, 
The sea-weed and the shells 
upon the sand, 
And the brown rocks left bare on every 

hand. 
As if the ebbing tide would flow no 
more. 
Then heard I, more distinctly than before, 
The ocean breathe and its great breast 

expand. 
And hurrying came on the defenceless 

land 
The insurgent waters with tumultuous 
*^^^ roar. 
All thought and feeling and desire, I said, 



226 A Nameless Grave 

Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of 
song 

Have ebbed from me forever ! Sud- 
denly o'er me 
They swept again from their deep ocean 
bed, 

And in a tumult of delight, and strong 

As youth, and beautiful as youth, up- 
bore me. 



\ 



A NAMELESS GRAVE. 

SOLDIER of the Union mus- 
tered out," 
Is the inscription on an un- 
known grave 
At Newport News, beside the salt-sea 

wave, 
Nameless and dateless ; sentinel or 
scout 
Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout 
Of battle, when the loud artillery drave 
Its iron wedges through the ranks of 
brave 




Sleep 22J 

And doomed battalions, storming the 

redoubt. 
Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea 
In thy forgotten grave ! with secret 

shame 
I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn, 
When I remember thou hast given for me 
All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very 

name, 
And I can give thee nothing in return. 




SLEEP. 

ULL me to sleep, ye winds, whose 
fitful sound 
Seems from some faint ^olian 
harpstring caught ; 
Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of 

thought 
As Hermes with his lyre in sleep pro- 
found 
The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound ; 
For I am weary, and am overwrought 
With too much toil, with too much care 
distraught. 



228 Nature 

And with the iron crown of anguish 
crowned. 
Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and 
cheek, 

peaceful Sleep ! until from pain re- 

leased 

1 breathe again uninterrupted breath ! 
Ah, with what subtile meaning did the 

Greek 
Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast 
Whereof the greater mystery is death ! 




NATURE. 

S a fond mother, when the day is 
o'er. 
Leads by the hand her little 
child to bed, 
Half willing, half reluctant to be led, 
And leave his broken playthings on the 
floor, 
Still gazing at them through the open 
door. 
Nor wholly reassured and comforted 
By promises of others in their stead, 



The Poets 229 

Which, though more splendid, may not 

please him more ; 
So Nature deals with us, and takes away 
Our playthings one by one, and by the 

hand 
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go 
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, 
Being too full of sleep to understand 
How far the unknown transcends the 

what we know. 



% 



THE POETS. 

YE dead Poets, who are living 
still 
Immortal in your verse, though 
life be fled, 
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead 
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill, 
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill. 
With drops of anguish falling fast and 

red 
From the sharp crown of thorns upon 
your head. 




2^0 The Poets 

Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil ? 
Yes ; for the gift and ministry of Song 
Have something in them so divinely 

sweet, 
It can assuage the bitterness of wrong ; 
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, 
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the 

throng. 
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat. 



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